The probable end of Nicholas: Nicholas in the pound. John Leech. Wood engraving from Punch 27 (1854): 243. Image with text preceding it [Click on image to enlarge it.] Punch wittily alludes to Phiz's Mr. Pickwick in the Pound (1836), one of the more famous illustrations to Dickens's Pickwick Papers:
Mr. Pickwick in the Pound. [Click on image to enlarge it.]
Almost twenty years had passed since the British reading public purchased the October 1836 instalment of Pickwick Papers in record numbers, but the work continued to be a best-seller in "Cheap" editions published by Chapman and Hall for just over two shillings. There is no doubt that Punch's readers would have apprehended the point of comparison, since Pickwick was put in the pound for trespassing on Captain Boldwig's estate — not that readers would have interpreted Nicholas, the Russian autocrat, as a reiteration of the benevolent and genial Samuel Pickwick, falsely accused and unjustly held up to village ignominy.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. Formatting by George P. Landow. Image courtesy of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and the University of British Columbia and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Last modified 16 May 2014