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Sikes, Nancy, and Oliver Twist
Felix Octavius Carr Darley
1888
Photogravure
11.4 by 10 cm (4 ¾ by 4 inches) vignetted
Dickens's Oliver Twist, as realised in Character Sketches from Dickens (1888).
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
The narrow streets and courts, at length, terminated in a large open space; scattered about which, were pens for beasts, and other indications of a cattle-market. Sikes slackened his pace when they reached this spot: the girl being quite unable to support any longer, the rapid rate at which they had hitherto walked. Turning to Oliver, he roughly commanded him to take hold of Nancy's hand.
"Do you hear?" growled Sikes, as Oliver hesitated, and looked round.
They were in a dark corner, quite out of the track of passengers. Oliver saw, but too plainly, that resistance would be of no avail. He held out his hand, which Nancy clasped tight in hers.
"Give me the other," said Sikes, seizing Oliver's unoccupied hand. "Here, Bull's-eye!"
The dog looked up, and growled. [Chapter XVI, "Relates what became of Oliver Twist after he had been claimed by Nancy," Household Edition, I, 174]
Darley uses the juxtaposition of these well known characters to recall for readers familiar with Oliver Twist the criminal gang's reapprehension of Oliver and through their poses and expressions to comment upon the nature of the characters themselves: timid yet indignant Oliver; Nancy, Sikes's devoted confederate in crime; and the brutal, ruthless bully, Bill Sikes. James Mahoney's illustrations in the Household Edition and Harry Furniss's in the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1871 and 1910 respectively) also constitute realistic responses to the Cruikshank originals; however, Darley's study is probably as much a reaction to the dual characterization of his countryman, Sol Eytinge, Junior, the sole illustrator of the 1867 Diamond Edition, as it is to Cruikshank's much earlier engravings. Certainly Darley renders Nancy an active accomplice in the boy's abduction, and therefore unworthy of the kind of sympathy with which the reader of Eytinge's Diamond Edition wood-engraving might have responded.
Above: Kyd's (Clayton J. Clarke's) turn-of-the-century coloured lithographs bespeak a certain fascination with the uncouth, atavistic villain of Dickens's Newgate novel: Bill Sikes, from the Player's Cigarette Card series.
Darley would not of course have had the benefit of studying either Clayton J. Clarke's character studies (above) or Harry Furniss's economical character portrait of the East End housebreaker, Bill Sikes (1910). However, he would undoubtedly have consulted the earlier Cruikshank engravings (readily available through American piracies as well as through the 1846 Chapman and Hall edition), and the more recent wood-engravings by James Mahoney for the Household Edition (1871). Although Mahoney's Sixties style is as realistic, his drawings of the low-life couple lack Darley's dynamism, depth, and finish. After study the Cruikshank plates, Darley has replaced the seedy and somewhat cartoonish crowd of bystanders outside the Regency beer shop with an atmospheric backdrop suggestive of early evening (as indicated by the gas-lamp which illuminates Nancy) in the area of Smithfield. As in the text, Nancy's large street-door key and the confiscated books are prominent — but no one is near to come to Oliver's rescue, whereas in Cruikshank's version, the ironically entitled Oliver claimed by his affectionate friends the curious and sympathetic bystanders imply that Oliver may yet escape Sikes's grasp and return to the kindly Mr. Brownlow.
Left: Cruikshank's Oliver claimed by his affectionate friends. Centre: Cruishank's Sikes attempting to destroy his dog. Right: Mahoney's Household Edition illustration (1871) "You are on the scent, are you, Nancy?". [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Left: Harry Furniss's Bill Sikes (1910). Centre: Harry Furniss's Oliver in the Grip of Sikes (1910). Right: Sol Eytinge, Junior's Nancy and Bill Sikes (1867). [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. New York and Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Bolton, Theodore. The Book Illustrations of Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1951). Worcester, Mass: American Antiquarian Society, 1952.
Darley, Felix Octavius Carr. Character Sketches from Dickens. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1888.
Dickens, Charles. The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Chapman and Hall, 1846.
Dickens, Charles. The Adventures of Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 55 vols. Illustrated by F. O. C. Darley and John Gilbert. New York: Sheldon and Co., 1865. Vols. III and IV.
Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. Vol. XI.
Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Household Edition. 22 vols. Illustrated by James Mahoney. London: Chapman and Hall, 1871. Vol. I.
Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. III.
Created 11 August 2014 Last updated 14 July 2026