Charley Bates

J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd")

c. 1900

Original watercolour

Oliver Twist (homepage)

Kyd has apparently gone right back to the serial steel-engravings of George Cruikshank in Bentley's Miscellany for his inspiration here, as Charley, the wise-cracking confederate of The Artful Dodger, does not appear in either the Player's cigarette card series or The Characters of Charles Dickens (1889) and Some Well Known Characters from the Works of Charles Dickens (1892). [continued below.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham

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Commentary

Kyd's Charley does not much resemble the frightened waif of F. W. Pailthorpe's 1886 hand-tinted engraving Return of the boys without Oliver or James Mahoney's 1871 wood-engraving of Charley in the same scene with Fagin, "What's become of the boy?" from the Household Edition. Thus, the most pausible model of the gang's "class clown" is the Cruikshank character in Master Bates explains a professional technicality (Part 9, December 1837: Chapter 18, "How Oliver passed his time in the improving society of his reputable friends"]. See also Master Bates explains a professional technicality from Cruikshank's own water-colour version, in which Charley's straggling sideburns are apparent.

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Created 19 February 2015