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"Barkis is willin'," says you.'"
W. H. C. Groome
1900
11.4 x 7.6 cm, (4 ½ by 3 inches), framed
Lithograph
Dickens's David Copperfield (frontispiece), referencing page 112.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"Have you told her so, Mr. Barkis?"
"No — no," growled Mr. Barkis, reflecting about it. "I ain’t got no call to go and tell her so. I never said six words to her myself, I ain’t a-goin’ to tell her so."
"Would you like me to do it, Mr. Barkis?" said I, doubtfully. "You might tell her, if you would," said Mr. Barkis, with another slow look at me, ‘that Barkis was a-waitin’ for a answer. Says you — what name is it?"
"Her name?"
"Ah!" said Mr. Barkis, with a nod of his head.
"Peggotty."
"Chrisen name? Or nat’ral name?" said Mr. Barkis.
"Oh, it’s not her Christian name. Her Christian name is Clara."
"Is it though?’ said Mr. Barkis.
He seemed to find an immense fund of reflection in this circumstance, and sat pondering and inwardly whistling for some time.
"Well!’ he resumed at length. ‘Says you, “Peggotty! Barkis is waitin’ for a answer.” Says she, perhaps, “Answer to what?” Says you, “To what I told you.” “What is that?” says she. “Barkis is willin’,” says you.’
This extremely artful suggestion Mr. Barkis accompanied with a nudge of his elbow that gave me quite a stitch in my side. After that, he slouched over his horse in his usual manner; and made no other reference to the subject except, half an hour afterwards, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, and writing up, inside the tilt of the cart, ‘Clara Peggotty’ — apparently as a private memorandum. [Chapter VIII: "My Holidays. Especially One Happy Afternoon," 112]
With a wealth of material to choose from in Dickens's longest novel, Groome has chosen to focus on Barkis's enlisting the naive David to help him propose to Clara Peggotty, David's former nurse. Although the medium of the lithograph, so popular in book illustration from 1890 onwards, does not generally permit the artist the opportunity to set the context of the scene sharply, Groome here presents the crotchety character of the laconic carrier against an informative backdrop, including his covered wagon laden with goods and the rural English scene to the left. David looks wonderingly at the inveterate bachelor, not quite comprehending the role of match-maker that the middle-aged yarmouth carrier intends him to play. Since by the early twentieth-century the proposal scene was almost iconic in terms of Dickens's comic vignettes, Groome had his work cut out for him as he had to at least equal in visual humour earlier illustrations by such well-known Dickens illustrators as Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz') and Fred Barnard.
Left: Phiz's March 1847 serial illustration
Left: Fred Barnard's description of the carrier and his cart in the Household Edition: "I saw to my amazement, Peggotty burst from a hedge and climb into the cart." (1872). Right: Harry Furniss's version of Barkis's wedding day: "Barkis is Willin'" (1910).
Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. Illustrated by W. H. C. Groome. London and Glasgow: Collins Clear-type Press, 1907.
Created 4 July 2022