Nelly, kneeling down beside the box, was soon busily engaged in her task — Chap. XVII by Charles Green. 1876. 9.7 cm high by x 13.8 cm wide (3 ⅝ by 5 ⅜ inches). Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop, in the 1876 British Household Edition, IV: 64.

Passage Illustrated: Nell comes to the aid of the Punch-and-Judy Men

"Look here; here’s all this Judy’s clothes falling to pieces again. You haven’t got a needle and thread I suppose?"

The little man shook his head, and scratched it ruefully as he contemplated this severe indisposition of a principal performer. Seeing that they were at a loss, the child said timidly:

"I have a needle, Sir, in my basket, and thread too. Will you let me try to mend it for you? I think I could do it neater than you could."

Even Mr Codlin had nothing to urge against a proposal so seasonable. Nelly, kneeling down beside the box, was soon busily engaged in her task, and accomplishing it to a miracle.

While she was thus engaged, the merry little man looked at her with an interest which did not appear to be diminished when he glanced at her helpless companion. When she had finished her work he thanked her, and inquired whither they were travelling. [Chapter XVI, 61]

Commentary

Right: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s study of the Punch Professor without Nell and her grandfather in the frame: Codlin and Short (1867).

Green's realistic description of the Punch "Professors" Codlin and Short lacks the humour of Phiz's quaint caricatures in Punch in the Churchyard (see below), but conveys an accurate picture of what such itinerant entertainers would have looked like in the early nineteenth century. In his version, Green describes the puppeteers as somewhat indolent, but certainly as more respectably dressed than their Phizzian forebears, and depicts Nell as actively engaged in helping repair their puppets as Grandfather Trent with equal seriousness looks on. Dickens does not use the traditional term for the puppeteers, “Professors,” but accurately describes their kit. Such shows, appealing to adults as well as to children on account of the slapstick violence of the quarrels between the red-nosed husband and his self-assertive wife, have their roots in the commedia dell’arte plays of sixteenth century Naples, especially those that included the beloved and irascible rascal, Pulcinella. Itinerant professors such as Codlin and Short have entertained English-speaking audiences at least since the 1662, when Samuel Pepys attended and subsequently recorded in his famous Diary a performance in London by Italian puppeteer Pietro Gimonde, whose stage-name was "Signor Bologna." Diarist Pepys recorded the date of that show as 9 May 1662, so that it has come by tradition to be known in the United Kingdom as “Mr. Punch’s birthday.”

Commentary: Embedded text or blank headstone?

Right: W. H. C. Groome's realistic study of the disreputable Punch puppeteers alongside Nell and her grandfather in the churchyard: Nelly was soon engaged in her task (1900).

Dickens provides a cue to his initial illustrator, Phiz, about the puppet's pointing to an epitaph on a nearby grave, but he does not specify the precise wording, and so leaves the choice of embedded text to the illustrator: "Punch, it may be remarked, seemed to be pointing with the tip of his cap to a most flourishing epitaph, and to be chuckling over it with all his heart." Thus, Phiz in his original serial illustration Punch in the Churchyard (11 July 1840) had the opportunity to act as collaborator and co-presenter by supplying the missing biblical passage that has so tickled Mr. Punch's fancy: "SAGARS" looks to be a corruption of an epitaph commonly used in the seventeenth century "All flesh is grass" ("Isaiah," 40: 6) which is the text upon which Dickens had elaborated at the opening of the chapter with his descriptions of the clergyman's horse and donkey nearby. Although Phiz has surmounted the inscription with a pair of wings, as if suggesting the soul's ascent on angelic pinions, he has left the decoding of the inscription to the reader. To unify the composition, Phiz has Punch's gaze directed to Grandfather Trent's face just beyond the headstone, as if implying a connection between the coded epitaph, the grave, and the fate of the elderly traveller. Significantly, in his version of this scene, the Household Edition illustrator has moved past the moment that Phiz illustrated. His travellers are already seated, Nell is engaged in sewing repairs to the puppet's costume, and Punch is no longer perched on a headstone. Moreover, Green has not attempted to embed any text at all; even though he has included a dozen stone markers, not one bears even the trace of an inscription or artistic elaboration. The effect, therefore, is to draw the reader's eye towards the four seated figures, and away from the stage-set.

Other Artists' Conceptions of Codlin and Short (1840 & 1872)

Left: Phiz's caricatural style hardly flatters the Punch-and-Judy performers, even though the text underscores their affability: Punch in the Churchyard (Part Ten: 11 July 1840). Right: Worth's more prosaic Household Edition illustration establishes the ill-kempt natures of Codlin and Short in Nelly was soon engaged in her task (1872).

Relevant illustrations from 1910 Editions

Left: Clayton J. Clarke's amusing caricatures of the Punch-and-Judy performers in the Player's Cigarette card series: Codlin (Card No. 25) and Short (Card No. 25), both dating from 1910. Right: Harry Furniss's realisation of the same scene in the Charles Dickens Library edition, Codlin and Short in the Churchyard (1910).

Relevant Illustrations from the 1861 and 1888 editions by Darley

Other Artists' Illustrations for Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop (1841-1924)

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [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 (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography: The Old Curiosity Shop (1841-1924)

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. The Dickens Souvenir Book. Illustrated by Fred Barnard and Others. London: Chapman and Hall, 1912.

_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). London: Chapman and Hall, 1841. Rpt., 1900 in The Authentic Edition.

_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Thomas Worth. The Household Edition. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1872. VI.

_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Charles Green. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876. XII.

_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 viols. London: Educational Book, 1910. V.

Hall, Stephanie. "Punch & Judy in America: Lecture and Oral History with Mark Walker." Library of Congress. 5 November 2019. Web. 2 June 2020.

_______. "Puppets: A Story of Magical Actors." Folklife Today, March 16, 2018. Web. 2 June 2020.

Hammerton, J. A. "XIII. The Old Curiosity Shop." The Dickens Picture-Book. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. 170-211.

Kitton, Frederic George. "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne), a Memoir, Including a Selection From His Correspondence and Notes on His Principal Works. London, George Redway, 1882.

Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Matz, B. W., and Kate Perugini. Character Sketches from Dickens. Illustrated by Harold Copping. London: Raphael Tuck, 1924.

Mayhew, Henry. "Punch's Showmen" and "Our Street Folk. 1. Street Exhibitions, Punch."  London Labour and the London Poor, Volume III. Griffen, Bohn, and Co., 1861 (volume III was part of the original 1851 set). [Available from Hathi Trust. See page 61 of the digital version for a discussion and script of Punch and Judy street puppetry.]

Steig, Michael. Chapter 3, "From Caricature to Progress: Master Humphrey's Clock and Martin Chuzzlewit." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978. 51-85.


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Created 5 May 2020

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