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The Attempted Burglary
Felix O. C. Darley
1865
Photogravure
9.7 x 8.4 cm (3 ¾ by 3 ¼ inches) vignetted
Dickens's The Adventures of Oliver Twist, Sheldon & Co. Household Edition (New York), vol. II frontispiece.
Image from the personal collection of Dr. Philip V. Allingham
Frontispiece for The Adventures of Oliver Twist, volume 2, in the Household Edition (1865).
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Although Mr. Crackit spoke in a scarcely audible whisper, and laughed without noise, Sikes imperiously commanded him to be silent, and to get to work. Toby complied, by first producing his lantern, and placing it on the ground; then by planting himself firmly with his head against the wall beneath the window, and his hands upon his knees, so as to make a step of his back. This was no sooner done, than Sikes, mounting upon him, put Oliver gently through the window with his feet first; and, without leaving hold of his collar, planted him safely on the floor inside.
"Take this lantern," said Sikes, looking into the room. "You see the stairs afore you?"
Oliver, more dead than alive, gasped out, "Yes." Sikes, pointing to the street-door with the pistol-barrel, briefly advised him to take notice that he was within shot all the way; and that if he faltered, he would fall dead that instant.
"It's done in a minute," said Sikes, in the same low whisper. "Directly I leave go of you, do your work. Hark!"
"What's that?" whispered the other man.
They listened intently. — Household Edition, Volume One, Chapter 22, "The Burglary," pp. 250-251.
Darley would probably have approached his subject with a textual knowledge that Dickens's original illustrator, George Cruikshank publishing in Bentley's Miscellany would not have possessed because the earlier illustrator would have read only a limited number of monthly instalments. Cruikshank realised the scene of the servants' interrupting the robbery in progress for the January 1838 instalment, but did imply that the venture would end in failure. Darley, however, armed with a full knowledge of the plot, telegraphs an important point about this incident, for he suggests by his caption, "The Attempted Burglary" [emphasis added], that Toby and Sikes will not succeed.
By sheer coincidence or through the machinations of Providence, the substantial house in Chertsey that Sikes has selected as his target (through the window of which in the Darley illustration Sikes is preparing to hoist Oliver) belongs to the Maylies, the wealthy family who adopted Rose, the sister of Agnes, Oliver's mother. Although Dickens's official illustrator elected — likely at Dickens's suggestion — to make the celebrated workhouse scene Oliver's Asking for More (Part 1, February 1837) the frontispiece for the 1846 Chapman and Hall re-release of the novel in volume form, Darley ignores the workhouse segment of the story entirely in his 1865 frontispieces. In the first of these he focuses on Oliver's relationship with Fagin; in the second, he depicts the protagonist with the burglar, Bill Sikes. Darley depicts him as the sordid, lower-class villain out of contemporary melodrama in his 1888 series of Character Sketches from Dickens. Darley's Sikes appears consistently as much less of a caricature and much more of an individual, despite his cartoonish long face and dingy white top hat derived directly from Cruikshank. He has the relentless realism of James Mahoney in his 1871 volume for the Household Edition), rather than appearing as a type. In Darley's 1865 frontispiece, however, Sikes is barely discernible, and the focus of Darley's illustration once again is Oliver.
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.
Since the second volume of the New York Household Edition's 1865 Oliver Twist begins at Chapter 29, "Has an Introductory Account of the Inmates of the House, to which Oliver resorted," the incident which Darley has depicted in the frontispiece lies immediately behind (rather than ahead of) us in the narrative, so that the reader of 1865 would likely have responded to the Darley frontispiece analeptically, perhaps even re-reading the account of events leading up to the break-in at the end of the first volume to match the determined look on the face of Sikes and the pathetic look on the face of Oliver "stupified by the unwonted exercise, and the drink which had been forced upon him. . . ." According to to text,the glare of Sikes's partially open dark lantern falls intensely on Oliver's face, as in the Darley illustration, although Sikes has yet to hoist Oliver up by his collar "with his feet first" so that he squeeze through the narrow window and let in Sikes and Crackit.
Left: George Cruikshank's The Burglary (1838). Centre: Harry Furniss's Oliver in the Grip of Sikes (1910). Right: Harry Furniss's The Burglary (1910). [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Above: James Mahoney's 1871 wood-engraving of Sikes's dragging an unwilling Oliver to the site of the burglary at Chertsey in Surrey, in Sikes, with Oliver's hand still in his, softly approached the low porch. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
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Cohen, Jane Rabb. "George Cruikshank." Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U. P., 1980. Pp. 15-38.
Darley, Felix Octavius Carr. Character Sketches from Dickens. Philadelphia: Porter and Coates, 1888.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. The Adventures of Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress. Illustrated by George Cruikshank. London: Bradbury and Evans; Chapman and Hall, 1846.
_______. 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., 1861. 2 vols.
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_______. The Adventures of Oliver Twist. Works of Charles Dickens. The Waverley Edition. Illustrated by Charles Pears. London: Waverley, 1912.
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Created 25 March 2015 Last modified 15 November 2021