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Tailpiece: Little Dorrit and Maggie asleep at the Gates of the Marshalsea
Harold Copping
1924
Photographic reproduction of line drawing
12 x 11.5 cm (4 ¾ by 4 ½ inches), vignetted
The tailpiece for "Little Dorrit of the Marshalsea," p. 132.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
One cold, wet evening, Little Dorrit and Maggie went to Mr. Clennam's house to thank him for having freed Edward from the prison, and on coming out found it was too late to get home, as the gate was locked. They tried to get in at Maggie's lodgings, but though they knocked twice, the people were asleep. As Little Dorrit did not wish to disturb them, they wandered about all night; sometimes sitting at the gate of the prison, Maggie shivering and whimpering.
"It will soon be over, dear," said patient Amy.
"Oh, it's all very well for you, mother," said Maggie, "but I'm a poor thing, only ten years old." ["Little Dorrit of the Marshalsea," Character Sketches from Dickens, 133]
Copping suggests Amy, despite her diminutive stature, is both resilient, determined, and brave as she protects the sleeping Maggie. The pair have inadvertently arrived too late to be admitted to the prison, and find they must sleep at the gates until morning. Maggie places a child-like trust in her junior, her "Little Mother," because she recognizes that she herself is mentally still a child, while Amy is competent since as a child without a mother from the age of eight, Amy has had to become self-reliant. Copping presents the pair with both sentimentality and realism as he focusses upon the figures rather than the atmospheric setting, as Phiz (1856) and Mahoney (1873) had done, emphasizing atmosphere through the application of chiaroscuro.
Copping chooses this famous scene as his tailpiece to conclude the series, for the friends' mutual tenderness and Amy's protectiveness complement Mary Angela Dickens's winding up the much-abbreviated narrative of Amy Dorrit and her father with good fortune and marriage, the key elements of Poetic Justice in Victorian fiction. When Clennam himself becomes for a time a prisoner in what had been Mr. Dorrit's cell, Amy comforts and consoles him: "and after a while she became his wife, and they lived happy ever after" (134). Copping invests Amy's face with an introspective gaze suggestive of a philosophical wisdom beyond her years.
Right: Phiz's original serial version of the scene in which the pair are locked out and thrown upon their own resources: Little Dorrit's Party in "The Story of the Princess" (March 1856). Left: James Mahoney's Household Edition composite woodblock illustration of Maggy and Little Dorrit locked out of the Marshalsea: The gate was so familiar, and so like a companion, that they put down Maggy's basket in a corner to serve for a seat (1873).
Bentley, Nicolas, et al. The Dickens Index. Oxford & Troronto: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Dickens, Charles. Little Dorrit. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). The Authentic Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1901 [rpt. 30 May 1857 volume].
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 3 October 2023