Nicholas Recognizes the Young Lady Unknown
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby
April 1839
Etching
Source: J. A. Hammerton, The Dickens Picture-Book, p. 162.
Image scan and text by Philip V. Allingham.
1839
Wood engraving
Source: J. A. Hammerton, The Dickens Picture-Book, p. 162.
Image scan and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Paralleling the "recognition" scene in the previous illustration (for chapter 38) this first illustration for April 1839 involves another recognition, as fortuitous as the prior one was unfortunate. In the midst of attempting to discover whether his Uncle Ralph was behind Squeers's apprehension of Smike, Nicholas unexpectedly encounters a beautiful young woman in the Cheerybles' office. Apparently beseeching Charles Cheeryble for some favour, she is on her knees at his feet as a female attendant looks on:
Nicholas stammered out an awkward apology, and was precipitately retiring, when the young lady, turning her head a little, presented to his view the features of the lovely girl whom he had seen at the register-office on his first visit long before [ch. 16, when he had noted her "countenance of most uncommon beauty, though shaded by a cloud of sadness"]. Glancing from her to the attendant, he recognized the same clumsy servant who had accompanied her then; and between his admiration of the young lady's beauty, and the confusion and surprise of this unexpected recognition, he stood stock-still, in such a bewildered state of surprise and embarrassment that, for the moment, he was quite bereft of the power either to speak or move. [ch. 40, "In which Nicholas falls in Love. He employs a Mediator, whose Proceedings are crowned with unexpected Success, excepting in one solitary Particular," Part 13, April 1839]
References
Hammerton, J. A. The Dickens Picture-Book. London: Educational Book, 1910.
Last modified 4 May 2009