Dickens's "Mr. Pecksniff and Old Martin Chuzzlewit" by Harold Copping

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Mr. Pecksniff and Old Martin Chuzzlewit

Harold Copping

1924

colour lithography

7 x 5 inches

From Character Sketches from Dickens, facing p. 70

The scene illustrated occurs in serial episode four (chapter 10, "Containing Strange Matter; on which many events in this history, may, for their own good or evil influence, chiefly depend" (April 1843).

Scanned image and caption by Philip V. Allingham

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Note on Martin Chuzzlewit by B.W. Matz

In one of his prefaces to Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens declares that his main object was "to exhibit in a variety of aspects the commonest of all vices; to show how selfishness propagates itself; and to what a grim giant it may grow, from small beginnings." In the person of Pecksniff he created a character that has become a by-word for hypocrisy, whilst other characters, such as Sairey Gamp and old Martin Chuzzlewit, have taken their place in the gallery of immortals. On the reverse side, equally inimitable, are to be found Tom Pinch, Mark Tapley, Ruth Pinch, John Westlock, and scores of others. The selections made from the book represent these phases. Old Martin is introduced in the first excerpt, delightful Ruth Pinch and her brother in the next, whilst the immortal tea party of Sairey Gamp and Betsy Prig forms the third. [68]

Bibliography

Matz, B. W., and Kate Perugini; illustrated by Harold Copping. Character Sketches from Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1924. Copy in the Paterson Library, Lakehead University.

Created 15 February 2009

Last modified 25 September 2023