"You — you Heep of infamy."
W. H. C. Groome
1907
11.6 x 7.6 cm (4 ½ by 3 inches), framed
Lithograph
Dickens's David Copperfield, referencing page 750; facing page 737.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Passage Illustrated: Micawber denounces Heep as am Embezzler
Mr. Micawber, whose impetuosity I had restrained thus far with the greatest difficulty, and who had repeatedly interposed with the first syllable of SCOUN-drel! without getting to the second, now burst forward, drew the ruler from his breast (apparently as a defensive weapon), and produced from his pocket a foolscap document, folded in the form of a large letter. Opening this packet, with his old flourish, and glancing at the contents, as if he cherished an artistic admiration of their style of composition, he began to read as follows: —
‘“Dear Miss Trotwood and gentlemen —“’
"Bless and save the man!" exclaimed my aunt in a low voice. "He’d write letters by the ream, if it was a capital offence!"
Mr. Micawber, without hearing her, went on.
‘“In appearing before you to denounce probably the most consummate Villain that has ever existed,”’ Mr. Micawber, without looking off the letter, pointed the ruler, like a ghostly truncheon, at Uriah Heep, ‘“I ask no consideration for myself. The victim, from my cradle, of pecuniary liabilities to which I have been unable to respond, I have ever been the sport and toy of debasing circumstances. Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, have, collectively or separately, been the attendants of my career.”’
The relish with which Mr. Micawber described himself as a prey to these dismal calamities, was only to be equalled by the emphasis with which he read his letter; and the kind of homage he rendered to it with a roll of his head, when he thought he had hit a sentence very hard indeed.
‘“In an accumulation of Ignominy, Want, Despair, and Madness, I entered the office — or, as our lively neighbour the Gaul would term it, the Bureau—of the Firm, nominally conducted under the appellation of Wickfield and — HEEP, but in reality, wielded by — HEEP alone. HEEP, and only HEEP, is the mainspring of that machine. HEEP, and only HEEP, is the Forger and the Cheat.”’
Uriah, more blue than white at these words, made a dart at the letter, as if to tear it in pieces. Mr. Micawber, with a perfect miracle of dexterity or luck, caught his advancing knuckles with the ruler, and disabled his right hand. It dropped at the wrist, as if it were broken. The blow sounded as if it had fallen on wood. [Chapter LII, "I Assist at an Explosion," pp. 749-750]
Commentary: David again bears witness to Micawber's denunciation of Heep
Even Groome's relatively short program of illustration for David Copperfield would be incomplete without at least one image involving the incomparable and indefatigible Wilkins Micawber, young David's guide through the "Modern Babylon" of London. And Groome has chosen his representative scene well, for here Micawber gets the better of the novel's devious villain, Uriah Heep, as he denounces the usurper of his employer's law firm as a swindler. The witnesses to the scene that, ironically Phiz never attempted in the 1849-50 serialisation, include Tommy Traddles (rear), Uriah and his mother (left), Aunt Betsey Trotwood (right foreground), her companion, Mr. Dick (right margin), the recorder and close observer of the scene, David Copperfield (upper right), and Agnes Wickfield beside him. Groome here may be reacting to a far less crowded and less charged version of the same scene by Barnard in the Household Edition, "And the name of the whole atrocious mass is — Heep!" (1872). Groome has actually improved upon Barnard by rendering the whole more dramatically, giving the indignant law clerk centre stage, and showing the reptillian villain and his mother cringing before Micawber's ruler and the charges contained on the foolscap that Micawber holds in his left hand.
Studies of Wilkins Micawber in Other Editions (1867 through 1910)
Left: Harry Furniss's Charles Dickens Library Edition version of the same
scene heightens the domestic melodrama as Micawber flourishes the ruler:
Left: Kyd (Clayton J. Clarke) captures Micawber's characteristic shabby-genteel look in the Player's Cigarette Card: Mr. Micawber (1910). Right: Barnard depicts Micawber's denunciation of Heep before a much smaller audience: "And the name of the whole atrocious mass is — Heep!" (1872).
Related Material
- David Copperfield (homepage)
- Phiz's 40 serial illustrations for David Copperfield (Oct. 1846 - April 1848)
- 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)
- Fred Barnard's 61 illustrations for the Household Edition, Vol. III (1872)
- 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)
Bibliography
Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield, with 61 illustrations by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. 3.
_______. David Copperfield. Illustrated by W. H. C. Groome. London and Glasgow: Collins Clear-type Press, 1907.
Created 8 July 2022