For an instant, a distressful shadow crossed her face; but, even in the start it gave me, it was gone. Fred Barnard's fifty-seventh composite woodblock engraving for the Household Edition (1872) of David Copperfield (Chapter LX, "Agnes," but positioned in the previous chapter, on p. 409). Descriptive headline: "Agnes and I, And The Old Time" (419). 9.6 x 14 cm (3 ¾ by 5 ½ inches), vignetted. [Click on the image to enlarge it; mouse over links.]
Passage Illustrated: David quickly re-establishes that old intimacy with his "sister," Agnes
She put her hand in mine, and told me she was proud of me, and of what I said; although I praised her very far beyond her worth. Then she went on softly playing, but without removing her eyes from me. "Do you know, what I have heard tonight, Agnes," said I, strangely seems to be a part of the feeling with which I regarded you when I saw you first — with which I sat beside you in my rough school-days?"
"You knew I had no mother," she replied with a smile, "and felt kindly towards me."
"More than that, Agnes, I knew, almost as if I had known this story, that there was something inexplicably gentle and softened, surrounding you; something that might have been sorrowful in someone else (as I can now understand it was), but was not so in you."
She softly played on, looking at me still.
"Will you laugh at my cherishing such fancies, Agnes?"
"No!"
"Or at my saying that I really believe I felt, even then, that you could be faithfully affectionate against all discouragement, and never cease to be so, until you ceased to live? —- Will you laugh at such a dream?"
"Oh, no! Oh, no!"
For an instant, a distressful shadow crossed her face; but, even in the start it gave me, it was gone; and she was playing on, and looking at me with her own calm smile. [Conclusion of Chapter LX, "Agnes," 420]
Reacting to Phiz's plates, Barnard changes the focus of the accompanying illustrations
Whereas Phiz ends on a satirical note in his final serial illustration, I Am Shewn Two Interesting Pentitents (November 1850), which focuses on the fate of the rogues Heep and Littimer, in this pair of illustrations for these late chapters, I walked up to where he was sitting, and said, "How do you do, Mr. Chillip?" and For an instant, a distressful shadow crossed her face; but, even in the start it gave me, it was gone, Barnard keeps the reader's focus steadily on the renaissant romance of David and Agnes. They are seen here at the piano in the staid, old house of the Wickfields in Canterbury. David has just ridden over from his aunt's cottage outside Dover. The caption forces the reader to examine the accompanying text for the cause of Agnes's "distress," for she must be hoping that the marriage of true minds will be more than a mere "fancy" or "dream."
The air of past romance revived and old affections finally realized lingers over the vignetted illustration. Mr. Wickfield, mentally as well as physically infirm, sits in the chimney corner, perhaps reflecting upon his misfortunes, which in part he brought upon himself. But Barnard's focus here is on the mature couple at the piano, as if he is striving to realise visually the effect of Agnes's notes on the instrument and the beautifully written scene, one of Dickens's most satisfyingly sentimental, for the plate foreshadows David's happy second marriage with a woman his intellectual equal.
Related Material
- David Copperfield (homepage)
- Phiz's 40 serial illustrations for David Copperfield (May 1849 - November 1850)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 1, 1862)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 2, 1862)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 3, 1862)
- Sol Eytinge, Junior's 16 Diamond Edition Illustrations (1867)
- W. H. C. Groome's 7 illustrations for the Collins Clear-type Pocket Edition, Vol. I (1907)
- Kyd's five Player's Cigarette Cards, 1910
- Harry Furniss's 29 Illustrations for Dickens's The Personal Experience and History of David Copperfield in the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)
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.]
The copy of the Household Edition from which this picture was scanned was the gift of George Gorniak, Editor of The Dickens Magazine, whose subject for the fifth series, beginning in January 2010, is this novel.
Bibliography
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.
Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). The Centenary Edition. 2 vols. London and New York: Chapman & Hall, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911.
_______. The Personal History of David Copperfield. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. Vol. V.
_______. David Copperfield, with 61 illustrations by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. III.
_______. The Personal History and Experiences of David Copperfield. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. X.
Created 17 August 2016 Last modified 27 August 2022