Sampson Brass by J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") for the watercolour series (1910): reproduced on John Player cigarette card no. 29: Ninety-two Characters from Dickens: The Old Curiosity Shop. 2 ½ inches high by 1 ¼ inches wide (6.3 cm high by 3.3 cm wide). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
SAMPSON BRASS (The Old Curiosity Shop.)
An oily, treacherous, red-headed attorney; a creature of Quilp's, and by him suborned to falsely swear away the liberty of poor Kit Nubbles. “Water for lawyers!” cried the dwarf. “Melted lead and brimstone, you mean; nice, hot, blistering pitch and tar — that's the thing for them — eh, Brass, eh? ” [Verso of Card No. 29]
Dickens's Verbal Portrait of Sampson Brass in Chapter XXXIII Matches Kyd's Plate
This Brass was an attorney of no very good repute, from Bevis Marks in the city of London; he was a tall, meagre man, with a nose like a wen, a protruding forehead, retreating eyes, and hair of a deep red. He wore a long black surtout reaching nearly to his ankles, short black trousers, high shoes, and cotton stockings of a bluish grey. He had a cringing manner, but a very harsh voice; and his blandest smiles were so extremely forbidding, that to have had his company under the least repulsive circumstances, one would have wished him to be out of temper that he might only scowl. [Part 8, 27 June 1840: Chapter XI, 146]
Commentary on Kyd's Illustrations for the 1840-41 Novel
Kyd has based his turn-of-the-century characterizations largely on the original serial composite woodblock illustrations of Dickens's "Clock Works" team of Phiz sixty-one plates; and a few of George Cattermole's fourteen plates, most of which involve architectural settings. The full-length portrait of the fawning, buttoned up Bevis Marks attorney is one of nine in Kyd's series for The Old Curiosity Shop. Of the other nine character cards from the cast of the early picaresque novel (1840-41), amounting to 18% of the total, the rest are as follows:
- Dick Swiveller, no. 11;
- Mr. Chuckster, no. 12;
- the innocent and virtuous heroine, Nell, no. 22;
- the Punch-and-Judy man Short (Harris), no. 26;
- the villainous, lecherous Quilp, no. 26;
- the Brasses' quirky maid The Marchioness, no. 28;
- Sampson Brass's termagant sister, the dictatorial Sally Brass, no. 30;
- and the morose itinerant puppeteer Tommy Codlin, no. 31.
Like the Household Edition illustrator, Charles Green, Kyd has made the manipulative brother and sister "attorneys" look physically repulsive, in sharp contrast to Kyd's handling of the novel's angelic protagonist, Little Nell. Kyd's versions of the Brasses, Cards No. 29 and 30 for the Player's Cigarette card series of Dickens's characters, make them look for more engaging than the Neanderthals of Green's concluding dark plate.
Other Relevant Illustrations for Dickens's The Old Curiosity
Left: Quilp leering at the brasses by Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz) for 5 September 1840. Right: Worth's "What do you taunt me about going to keep a clerk for?" as Sally asserts her business choice which may in fact be a personal decision (American Household Edition, Ch. XXXIV).
Left: Quilp looks into the Attorney's Parlour by Harry Furniss for The Illustrated Library Edition (1910), Chapter XXXIII. Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Diamond Edition dual study, Worth's Sampson and Sally Brass (Ch. XXXIII).
Charles Green's British Household Edition illustration moves to the later part of Chapter XI, when Dickens introduces the brother-and-sister law firm at Bevis Marks, demonstrating Quilp's control of Sampson Brass, Sampson Brass, Attorney: "Is it good, Brass, is it nice, is it fragrant? (1876). Centre: Green's dark plate treatment of the bankrupted, ruined Brasses cast out into the mean streets of London: Two wretched people were more than once observed to crawl . . . in Chapter LXXIII (1876). Right: Harry Furniss's The Fallen Brass in Chapter LXVI (1910), preparing readers for Sampson Brass's financial and professional ruin, and his turning evidence against Quilp.
Other Artists Who Worked on The Old Curiosity Shop (1841-1924)
- George Cattermole (13 plates selected)
- Hablot Knight Browne (61 wood-engravings)
- Felix O. C. Darley (4 photogravure plates)
- Sol Eytinge, Jr. (8 wood engravings)
- Thomas Worth (47 wood engravings)
- Charles Green (39 wood engravings)
- W. H. C. Groome (9 lithographs)
- Harry Furniss (31 lithographs plus engraved title)
- Harold Copping (2 chromolithographs selected)
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography: Illustrated Editions of The Old Curiosity Shop
Brigden, C. A. T. “No. 13. Sally Brass.” The Characters from Charles Dickens as depicted by Kyd. Rochester, Kent: John Hallewell, 1978. Page 19.
The Characters of Charles Dickens Pourtrayed in a Series of Original Water Colour Sketches by “Kyd.” London, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, 1898[?].
Dickens, Charles. The Old Curiosity Shop in Master Humphrey's Clock. Illustrated by Phiz, George Cattermole, Samuel Williams, and Daniel Maclise. 3 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1841; rpt., Bradbury and Evans, 1849.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Frontispieces by Felix Octavius Carr Darley and Sir John Gilbert. The Household Edition. 55 vols. New York: Sheldon & Co., 1863. 4 vols.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. XII.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Thomas Worth. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Bros., 1872. I.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Charles Green. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876. XII.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. With nineteen steel-plate illustrations from original wood-engravings by Phiz and George Cattermole. 2 vols. "New Illustrated Library Edition" of the Works of Charles Dickens. New York: Hurd and Houghton; Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1876. Vols. VI and VII.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by William H. C. Groome. The Collins' Clear-Type Edition. Glasgow & London: Collins, 1900.
_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. V.
Hammerton, J. A. "XIII. The Old Curiosity Shop." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. XVII, 170-211.
Vann, J. Don. "The Old Curiosity Shop in Master Humphrey's Clock, 25 April 1840-6 February 1841." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. 64-65.
Created 8 January 2015
Last updated 18 July 2025