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Mr. Murdstone canes David
Harold Copping
1893
Photographic reproduction of line drawing
15.2 x 9.3 cm (5 ⅞ by 3 ¾ inches), vignetted
An illustration for "Little David Copperfield," p. 58.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
When [David] reached home [after visiting Peggotty's relatives in Yarmouth], however, he found a great change. His mother was married to the dark man David did not like, whose name was Mr. Murdstone, and he was a stern, hard man, who had no love for little David, and did not allow his mother to pet and indulge him as she had done before. Mr. Murdstone's sister came to live with them, and as she was even more difficult to please than her brother, and disliked boys, David's life was no longer a happy one. He had always had lessons with his mother, and as she was patient and gentle, he had enjoyed learning to read, but now he had a great many very hard lessons to do, and was so frightened and shy when Mr. and Miss Murdstone were in the room, that he did not get on at all well, and was continually in disgrace. His only pleasure was to go up into the little room at the top of the house where he had found a number of books that had belonged to his own father, and he would sit and read Robinson Crusoe, and many tales of travels and adventures, and he imagined himself to be the heroes, and ent about for days with the centre-piece out of an old set of boot-trees, pretending to be a Captain in the British Royal Navy.
But one day he got into sad trouble over his lessons, and Mr. Murdstone was very angry, and took him away from his mother and beat him with a cane. David had never been beaten in his life before, and was so maddened by pain and rage that he bit Mr. Murdstone's hand! Now, indeed, he had done something to deserve the punishment, and Mr. Murdstone in a fury, beat him savagely, and left him sobbing and crying on the floor. David was kept locked up in his room for some days, seeing no one but Miss Murdstone, who brought him his food. [Children's Stories from Dickens, "Little David Copperfield," 54]
Dickens wrote The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observations of David Copperfield the Younger, of Blunderstone Rookery, as a kind of fictionalised autobiography rather than the successor to such picaresque novels as Martin Chuzzlewit and Dombey and Son. Here, Dickens focussed on the childhood experiences that contributed to the grownup David's sensibilities as an artist. And the antithesis of the boy's caring mother and benevolent nurse is the brutal stepfather and his unfeeling sister, Jane. Ironically, none of the cast of characters from David's schooling and adulthood makes any appearance in this sixth chapter in Children's Stories from Dickens, which ends with David's escaping Mr. Murdstone's authority by seeking refuge with his father's aunt, who proves not to be a "rather terrible old lady" (55) after all.
Left: Dickens's original illustrator, Phiz, introduces Murdstone studying David's mother thoughtfully at the Sunday service: Our Pew at Church (May 1849). Centre: Harry Furniss's melodramatic study of the icy Murdstone in the Charles Dickens Library Edition: Mr. Murdstone takes David upstairs (1910). Right: Kyd's Player's Cigarette Card No. 37 depicting David's tormentor, armed with a switch: Mr. Murdstone (1910).
Left: The terrible Murdstones court Mrs. Copperfield in Sol Eytinge Junior's Diamond Edition sequence: Mr. and Miss Murdstone and Mrs. Copperfield (1867). Right: Fred Barnard's Household Edition depiction of David's chastisement and his mother's crying at Murdstone's treatment of her son: And when we came at last to the five thousand cheeses (1872).
Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). London: Chapman & Hall, May 1849 to April 1850.
Dickens, Mary Angela [Charles Dickens' grand-daughter]. Dickens' Dream Children. London, Paris New, York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, Ltd., 1924.
Dickens, Mary Angela et al. Children's Stories from Dickens. Introduction by Percy Fitzgerald. Illustrated by Harold Copping. London, Paris New, York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, Ltd., 1893.
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, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.
Created 28 September 2023