[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Harold Copping —> Next]
There was first a game at blind-man's buff
Harold Copping
1911
Black-and-white lithograph
16.4 cm by 10.8 cm (6 ⅜ by 4 inches), vignetted
From A Christmas Carol (1911), p. 87.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop. There was first a game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went, there went he. He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous. No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in office, they were so very confidential together, behind the curtains. ["Stave Three: The Second of The Three Spirits," pp. 85-86]
The third and final scene that Copping has included for the third stave follows a study of a curious Scrooge, the companion of the Spirit of Christmas Present, and the Cratchit family gathered around the sacramental goose. This vignette of the Christmas party of young adults at the home of Scrooge's nephew and his wife shows the unseen observer in what family celebrations he might yet be a participant. Thus, Copping uses the scene of young adults at play to suggest a resolution for the problem of Scrooge's social isolation. The original sequence by John Leech does not contain an image of the son of Scrooge's beloved sister, Fan (who represents Mrs. Henry Burnett, Dickens's older sister). Later illustrators such as Copping, with larger narrative-pictorial programs to fill, have addressed this deficit. Copping would not likely have seen the American illustrations of Sol Eytinge, Jr. (Fred's Christmas in Blind Man's Buff — see below) and (Fred's welcoming his uncle to the festivities in "It's I. Your Uncle Scrooge! I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?" — see below), so that the picture is very much his own innovation. And it likely inspired both C. E. Brock's and Charles Green's scenes in which bachelor Topper is clearly cheating and the "plump sister" seems to feigning a desire to escape as she is caught behind a curtain, much to the enjoyment of the rest of the company whom Scrooge will shortly join on Christmas Day. Copping invests the moment with a further comic element: the knowing glances of nephew Fred and his wife (left rear) that suggest that they are fully aware of the plump sister's subterfuge.
Left: Eytinge's realisation of the dynamic after-dinner parlour game, Blind Man's Buff (1868). Centre: Furniss's introduction of Scrooge's nephew, Fred: Scrooge objects to Christmas (1910). Right: C. E. Brock's dynamic line-drawing of Topper and the plump . . . a corner whence there was no escape (1905).
Left: Abbey's wood-engraving of Scrooge's being welcomed to Christmas dinner at Fred's, "It's I. Your Uncle Scrooge! I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?" (American Household Edition, 1876). Right: Charles Green's eighteenth lithograph is very similar in composition to Copping's: The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human nature (1912).
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being A Ghost Story for Christmas. Illustrated by John Leech. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol in Prose: being a ghost story for Christmas. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1869.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Illustrated by Harold Copping. London, Paris, New, York: Raphael Tuck, 1911.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Illustrated by Charles Green, R. I. London: A & F Pears, 1912.
Created 6 October 2023