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Passage Illustrated: Not so bad as Miss Mowcher seems upon first acquaintance

I looked at the doorway and saw nothing. I was still looking at the doorway, thinking that Miss Mowcher was a long while making her appearances, when, to my infinite astonishment, there came waddling round a sofa which stood between me and it, a pursy dwarf, of about forty or forty-five, with a very large head and face, a pair of roguish grey eyes, and such extremely little arms, that, to enable herself to lay a finger archly against her snub nose as she ogled Steerforth, she was obliged to meet the finger half-way, and lay her nose against it. Her chin, which was what is called a double chin, was so fat that it entirely swallowed up the strings of her bonnet, bow and all. Throat she had none; waist she had none; legs she had none, worth mentioning; for though she was more than full-sized down to where her waist would have been, if she had any, and though she terminated, as human beings generally do, in a pair of feet, she was so short that she stood at a common-sized chair as at a table, resting a bag she carried on the seat. [Chapter XXII, "Some Old Scenes, and Some New People," pp. 326-327]

Commentary

As a discreet hairdresser, Miss Mowcher is an invaluable resource for the vain James Steerforth. When David first meets her, he is put off by her loud and flighty manner. After Steerforth runs away with little Em'ly, however, Miss Mowcher visits David and explains that her earlier demeanor was just an act she puts on to secure work; because of her appearance (since she is a dwarf, she is anatomically disproportioned), she would find it hard to earn a living otherwise. She also confides that Littimer (Steerforth's valet) tricked her into delivering Steerforth's message to Em'ly, and states that she intends to make amends for the role she played in Em'ly's seduction. She eventually brings Littimer to justice by catching him stealing from his present master.

As is the case with the 1867 Diamond Edition's illustration of this peculiar character, Furniss presents her alone and without much in the way of contextual detail. Although David associates her with Steerforth's social circle, she is a rank outsider affiliated closely with nobody else in the story. There is something oddly sexual about the "pursy dwarf" who is able to upbraid Steerforth as if she were his equal as "My flower" and "you naughty boy." Her candour here reinforces the "knowing" nature of this unusual character.

Furniss emphasizes David's descriptive adjective for Miss Mowcher by including it in his caption: "pursy" suggests her difficulty in breathing, perhaps owing to circulatory problems or her sheer corpulence. Despite the fact that David is very much a speaker of Standard English, the colloquialism for "fat and out-of-breath" derives from a North of England expression based on the French verb "pousser," and probably borrowed here from Shakespeare's "For in the fatness of these pursy times Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg" (Hamlet, III, iv, 153). Dickens therefore initially associates the hairdresser not merely with corpulence, but with vice. But she must cultivate such a persona in order to earn a living. Since his model, Mrs. Seymour Hill, objected strenuously to Dickens about this characterization, the author amended his portrait considerably in chapters 32 and 61. Physical deformity, he concludes, does not necessarily betoken a warped or immoral character: Miss Mowcher is not a mere gargoyle after all.

Furniss, however, maintains her as a caricature, with short arms, plump feet, a single, rolling eye, an oversized bonnet, and excessive crinolines. In her right hand she holds a hairbrush, but in her left a small glass jar, the subject of her twinkling magpie gaze. Apparently within the container are the nail parings of a Russian Prince whose finger- and toenails she trims twice a week: "If Miss Mowcher cuts the Prince's nails, she must be all right" (330), think her other clients. In other words, Furniss does not walk back Dickens's original caricature of disability and difference, and therefore fails to reflect what Rodas terms his "ambivalence about disability" (51).

Other Studies of Miss Mowcher from Other Editions (1849-1872)

Left: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s solo character study of the hairdresser who may also serve as Steerforth's procuress: Miss Mowcher (Diamond Edition, 1867). Centre: Fred Barnard's later Household Edition study of the small hairdresser's telling off David: "Take a word of advice, even from three foot nothing. Try not to associate bodily defects with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason." (1872). Right: Phiz's original serial version of David's first meeting Steerforth's salacious hairdresser: I make the acquaintance of Miss Mowcher (December 1849).

Relevant Illustrated Editions of this Novel (1849 through 1910)

• Hablot Knight Browne's Forty steel engravings for the Chapman and Hall Edition (May 1849 through November 1850)
• O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York Sheldon & Co. edition (Vol. 1, 1863)
• O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York Sheldon & Co. edition (Vol. 2, 1863)
• Sir John Gilbert's Frontispiece in the New York Sheldon & Co. edition (Vol. 3, 1863)
• O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York Sheldon & Co. edition (Vol. 4, 1863)
• Sol Eytinge, Junior's 16 wood engravings for the Diamond Edition (1867)
• Fred Barnard's 62 Composite Woodblock Engravings for the Household Edition (1872)
• Clayton J. Clarke's (Kyd's) Watercolours and Player's Cigarette Card Designs (1889)

Bibliography

Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.

Cordery, Gareth. "Remaking Miss Mowcher's Acquaintance." Dickens Quarterly 29, 1 (March 2012): 11-31.

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. The Personal History of David Copperfield, illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). The Centenary Edition. London & New York: Chapman & Hall, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911. 2 vols.

_______. 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.

Hammerton, J. A., ed. The Dickens Picture-Book: A Record of the the Dickens Illustrations. London: Educational Book, 1910.

Rodas, Julia Miele. "Tiny Tim, Blind Bertha, and the Resistance of Miss Mowcher: Charles Dickens and the Uses of Disability." Dickens Studies Annual 34 (2004): 51-97.

Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U.P., 1978.

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Created 10 March 2022