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Mrs. Squeers and her brimstone-and-treacle
Harold Copping
1924
Line drawing (lithograph)
5 ½ by 3 ¼ inches (13.9 x 8 cm)
In "Smike, and Dotheboys Hall in Children's Stories from Dickens, 98.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
It was one of the brimstone-and-treacle mornings, and Mrs. Squeers had entered school according to custom with the large bowl and spoon, followed by Miss Squeers and the amiable Wackford: . . . . [98 continued below]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
who, during his father's absence, had taken upon himself such minor branches of the executive as kicking the pupils with his nailed boots, pulling the hair of some of the smaller boys, pinching the others in aggravating places, and rendering himself in various similar ways a great comfort and happiness to his mother. Their entrance, whether by premeditation or a simultaneous impulse, was the signal of revolt for the boys. While one detachment rushed to the door and locked it, and another mounted the desks and forms, the stoutest (and consequently the newest) boy seized the cane, and, confronting Mrs. Squeers with a stern countenance, snatched off her cap and beaver bonnet, put it on his own head, armed himself with the wooden spoon, and bade her, on pain of death, go down upon her knees and take a dose directly. Before that estimable lady could recover herself, or offer the slightest retaliation, she was forced into a kneeling posture by a crowd of shouting tormentors, and compelled to swallow a spoonful of the odious mixture, rendered more than usually savoury by the immersion in the bowl of Master Wackford's head, whose ducking was entrusted to another rebel. ["Smike, and Dotheboys Hall," Children's Stories from Dickens, pp. 98-99]
Copping suggests the classroom uprising against Mrs. Squeers and her son only through her look of apprehension as she stirs the medicinal bowl. There is no context whatsoever, so that the reader must consult the letterpress to determine that Mrs. Squeers has just entered the classroom, where shortly she will forced to take her own medicine.
Left: Harry Furniss focuses on the ritual dosing in Chapter IV of the novel, well before the rebellion: Mr. Squeers dispenses a delicious Compound (1910). Right: Phiz's equivalent scene in the serial: The internal Economy of Dothebys Hall (June 1838).
Clarke, Clayton J. ('Kyd'). The Characters of Charles Dickens pourtrayed in a series of original water colour sketches by "Kyd." [Lithographs] London, Paris, and New York: Raphael Tuck, n. d. [1898?]
Dickens, Charles. The LIfe and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby. Illustrated by Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1839.
Dickens, Mary Angela, Percy Fitzgerald, Captain Edric Vredenburg, and Others. Illustrated by Harold Copping with eleven coloured lithographs. Children's Stories from Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1893.
Matz, B. W., and Kate Perugini; illustrated by Harold Copping. "Nicholas Nickleby." Character Sketches from Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1924. Pp. 39-51.
Created 12 October 2023