SOURCE: Hollington, Michael. “Dickens and Cruikshank as Physiognomers in Oliver Twist.” Dickens Quarterly 7, no. 2 (1990): 243-54.

In the following essay, Hollington proposes that Dickens and Cruikshank related to each other as rivals in the art of physiognomy with their depiction of the characters in Oliver Twist.

The aim of this essay is to explore in outline the nexus of relationships between writer, illustrator and reader in the representation of human appearance in a novel where it becomes clear at a very early stage that this is a question of considerable significance. The first metamorphosis of state undergone by the infant Oliver is a fall into a world of signification and interpretation based upon external appearance. Initially wrapped in a blanket, he is at first indecipherable, immune to any attempt to penetrate his outer wrapping and locate him in a system of differences: “it would have been hard for the...