Dickens Extra-Illustrated: Heads and Scenes in Monthly Parts (The Case of Nicholas Nickleby )

Abstract

As a practice that interleaves extraneous materials within the pages of a book, extra-illustration unbinds the volume form and undermines the autonomy of the literary and of the act of reading. I concentrate on Charles Dickens's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39) and sets of extra-illustrations by Peter Palette (pseud, for Thomas Onwhyn) and Miss La Creevy (pseud, for Kenny Meadows). Taking advantage of the material and temporal aspects of serialization, these extra-illustrations rearticulate the act of reading in a way that emphasizes the place of Victorian literature in a culture of viewing and collecting.