Dickens's "The Marchioness" by Harold Copping (1893)

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The Marchioness

Harold Copping

1893

Photographic reproduction of line drawing, p. 111.

15.1 x 12.9 cm (5 ⅞ by 2 ⅞ inches), vignetted.

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This children's version of The Marchioness emphasizes her gangly awkwardness and her street-smart precocity, but omits her actual relationship with Sally Brass. Dick pays for her schooling and marries her when she turns nineteen, after which he and "Sophronia Sphynx" play cribbage every evening. Mary Angela Dickens never mentions the small servant's actual name, and separates her from the cast of The Old Curiosity Shop.

Scanned image, caption, and commentary below by Philip V. Allingham

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Passage Illustrated: Enter The Marchioness at the Door

But he did not forget her. It troubled his mind very much that she seemed always to remain under ground and never came to the surface unless the lodger rang his bell. She never went out or came into the office, or took off the coarse apron, or looked out of any of the windows, or stood at the street door for a breath of air, or had any rest or refreshment whatever. Nobody ever came to see her, nobody spoke of her, nobody cared about her. ["The Marchioness," Chapter XI in Children's Stories from Dickens, 111]

Commentary: Divorcing The Marchioness from the Plot of the 1840 Novel

Copping takes a highly realistic interpretation of the small servant in each of the four pictures that he completed of her for Children's Stories from Dickens and Children's Stories from Dickens and Character Sketches from Dickens. Here the illustrator captures her tentative nature, for the Brasses have made sure that she remains largely a captive of the kitchen and is rarely seen above stairs. Although in the novel The Old Curiosity Shop she is instrumental in revealing the Brasses' plot against Kit Nubbles, Mary Angela Dickens dwells only upon her relationship with Dick, to whom she runs away to take refuge from the cruelty of the Brasses.

Other Illustrations of the Marchioness (1840-1910)

Left: Clayton J. Clarke's twenty-eighth Player's Cigarette Card in the Characters from Dickens series: The Marchioness (1910). Centre: Phiz's introduction of The Marchioness as the cook for the Brasses: The Small Servant's Dinner (19 September 1840). Right: Sol Eytinge's version of her in the Diamond Edition: Dick Swiveller and The Marchioness (1867).

Left: Harry Furniss's Charles Dickens Library Edition lithograph: Dick Swiveller hears the Marchioness say "No!" (1910). Centre: Charles Green offers a more realistic version of the kitchen scene: "Do you see this?" (1876). Right: Kyd's watercolour of The Marchioness, a colour lithograph: "But, please, will you leave a card or message?".

Left: Felix Octavius Carr Darley's frontispiece for the New York Household Edition: "Marchioness, your health. You will excuse my wearing my hat . . ." (1861). Centre: Thomas Worth in the American HOusehold Edition introduces the Marchioness with Quilp: "Do they use you ill here? Is your mistress a tartar" (Ch. LI, 1872). Right: Copping's watercolour of The Marchioness and Dick at his desk, a colour lithograph: Dick Swiveller meets the Marchioness from Character Sketches from Dickens (1924).

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

The Old Curiosity Shop Illustrated: A Team Effort by "The Clock Works."
George Cattermole (13 plates selected)
Hablot Knight Browne (61 wood-engravings)
Felix O. C. Darley (4 photogravure plates)
Sol Eytinge, Jr. (12 wood engravings)
Thomas Worth (54 wood engravings)
Charles Green (39 wood engravings)
W. H. C. Groome (8 lithographs plus engraved title)
J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") (13 lithographs from watercolours)
Harry Furniss (31 lithographs plus engraved title)

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). London: Chapman and Hall, 1841. Rpt., 1849 by Bradbury and Evans (3 vols. in 2).

_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Thomas Worth. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Bros., 1872. I.

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

Dickens, Mary Angela, Percy Fitzgerald, Captain Edric Vredenburg, and Others. Illustrated by Harold Copping with eleven coloured lithographs. Children's Stories from Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1893.

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 8 October 2023