Dickens's "Sam Weller and His Father," by Harold Copping

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Sam Weller and His Father

Harold Copping

1924

Colour lithography

Approximately 7 x 5 inches (18.2 x 13 cm)

From Character Sketches from Dickens, facing p. 28.

The comic genius of Charles Dickens has no better exhibit in his early writings that the twin creations of the cockney father and son, Tony and Sam Weller, the former a jolly coachman, the latter the quick-witted, smart-tongued boots (bootblack) of the White Hart Inn, introduced in Part 5 (August 1836), ch. 12. However, not until Part 8 (November 1836), ch. 22, does Dickens introduce us to Tony Weller, when Sam and Mr. Pickwick (the modern Sancho Panza and Don Quixote) go in search of Mr. Jingle, travelling to Ipswich in Tony's coach. The scene in the inn's courtyard which Matz realizes occurs at the very beginning of that twenty-second chapter.

The Pickwick Papers

The Pickwick Papers was first published in monthly parts in 1836, and projected Dickens to the top rung of the ladder of time, from which he never descended. His main object in writing it, he has told us, was "to place before the reader a constant succession of characters and incidents; to paint them in as vivid colours as he could command, and to render them, at the same time, life-like and amusing." All this he succeeded to do with amazing success, and the book remains to-day one of the most popular in the language, and retains that position by its exuberant humour.

The four extracts from its pages amply testify to this. They will be familiar to all readers, but, unlike most humorous stories, they can be read and read again with pure delight. [Matz and Perugini 14]

Scanned image, caption, and commentary in the right column above, by Philip V. Allingham [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

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.

Last modified 26 February 2009