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Jo and Lady Dedlock at the gates of the burying ground
Harold Copping
1924
Photographic reproduction of line drawing
12 x 10.8 cm (4 ¾ by 4 ¼ inches), vignetted
"Poor Jo, The Crossing-Sweeper," p. 83.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
A few days after the funeral, while Jo was still living on Mr. Snagsby's half-crown, he was standing at his crossing as the day closed in, when a lady, closely veiled and plainly dressed, came up to him.
"Are you the boy Jo who was examined at the Inquest?" she asked.
"That's me," said Jo.
"Come farther up the court, I want to speak to you."
"Wot, about him as was dead? Did you know him?"
"How dare you ask me if I knew him?"
"No offence, my lady," said Jo humbly.
"Listen and hold your tongue. Show me the place where he lived, then where he died, then where they buried him. Go in front of me, don't look back once, and I'll pay you well."
"I'm fly," said Jo. "But fen larks, you know. Stow hooking it!"
Jo takes her to each of the places she wants to see. Then she draws off her glove, and Jo sees that she has sparkling rings on her fingers. She drops a coin into his hand and is gone. Jo holds the coin to the light and sees to his joy that it is a golden sovereign. ["Poor Jo, The Crossing-Sweeper," Character Sketches from Dickens, 78-80]
Copping does not detail the plot-line between "Nemo" and Lady Dedlock because May Angela Dickens has made this Jo's story. In the original serial, Jo is purely a secondary character who appears in Phiz's serial steel-engravings three times. Indeed, only Fred Barnard in the Household Edition, the only other major nineteenth-century illustrated version of the novel, accords Jo any prominence as he shows him in seven of sixty-one scenes. Perhaps Lady Dedlock from a pictorial standpoint is the dominant figure in Furniss's twenty-eight plates, in which she appears prominently in five scenes: Lady Dedlock and Jo, The Dedlocks leaving the Church, Lady Dedlock and Esther, Lady Dedlock on the Staircase, Guppy and her Ladyship, and The Death of Lady Dedlock. Since her back story, the affair between Lady Dedlock and Nemo, is hardly suitable for children, Copping must restrain himself in describing her beauty or her role in Jo's narrative. We could readily misinterpret this scene as involving the kindly brick-layer's wife from St. Alban's since the illustration is positioned against that portion of the text. The only clue to her real identity is Mary Angela Dickens's emphasizing that the veiled figure is "a lady" (80) and that she can easily afford to give her guide "a golden Sovereign" (80).
Left: F. O. C. Darley's frontispiece depicting Lady Dedlock's disguise: A female figure, closely veiled, stands in the middle of the room. . . (1863). Centre: Fred Barnard's Household Edition realization of Jo and Lady Dedlock (disguised) in the street: "I'm fly," says Jo. "But fen larks, you know. Stow hooking it!" (1873). Right: Phiz's original serial version of the scene in the July 1852 (fifth number), in which Joe points out where Nemo is buried: Consecrated Ground.
Bentley, Nicolas, et al. The Dickens Index. Oxford & Troronto: Oxford U. P., 1990.
Dickens, Charles. Bleak House. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). London: Bradbury and Evans, 1853.
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 8 October 2023