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I found myself backing Traddles into the fire-place . . .
Sir John Gilbert
1863
10.2 x 8.4 cm vignetted
Photogravure
Frontispiece for the third volume of Dickens's The Personal History and Experience of David Copperfield the Younger, in the Sheldon & Co. (New York) Household Edition (1861-71).
[Click on illustration to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham from his own collection.
On our approaching the house where the Misses Spenlow lived, I was at such a discount in respect of my personal looks and presence of mind, that Traddles proposed a gentle stimulant in the form of a glass of ale. This having been administered at a neighboring public-house, he conducted me, with tottering steps, to the Misses Spenlow's door.
I had a vague sensation of being, as it were, on view, when the maid opened it; and of wavering, somehow, across a hall with a weather-glass in it, into a quiet little drawing-room on the ground-floor, commanding a neat garden. Also of sitting down here, on a sofa, and seeing Traddles's hair start up, now his hat was removed, like one of those obtrusive little figures made of springs, that fly out of fictitious snuff-boxes when the lid is taken off. Also of hearing an old-fashioned clock ticking away on the chimney-piece, and trying to make it keep time to the jerking of my heart, — which it wouldn't. Also of looking round the room for any sign of Dora, and seeing none. Also of thinking that Jip once barked in the distance, and was instantly choked by somebody. Ultimately I found myself backing Traddles into the fireplace, and bowing in great confusion to two dry little elderly ladies, dressed in black, and each looking wonderfully like a preparation in chip or tan of the late Mr. Spenlow.
"Pray," said one of the two little ladies, "be seated." — Chapter 41, "Dora's Aunts," VI, 228-29.
[As a guide to his artist as well as to the readers' imaginations, Dickens provides this further description of the elderly aunts:] They were dressed alike, but this sister wore her dress with a more youthful air than the other; and perhaps had a trifle more frill, or tucker, or brooch, or bracelet, or some little thing of that kind, which made her look more lively. They were both upright in their carriage, formal, precise, composed, and quiet. The sister who had not my letter, had her arms crossed on her breast, and resting on each other, like an Idol. [229]
Sir John Gilbert provided sporadic relief for the series' principal illustrator, Felix Octavius Carr Darley, typically providing a frontispiece for the third volume in a four-volume set. His task here was a little easier in that he did not have to provide much visual continuity with any of Darley's other Copperfield frontispieces; however, like Darley in Saved from destruction (the frontispiece for the fourth volume), he had to take into account the images of the mature David established by Hablot Knight Browne in the original serial. Thus, although Tommy Traddles and Dora's maiden aunts have not appeared in the other frontispieces, David as an adult appears in the frontispiece for volume 4, so that Gilbert had to take that suave, gentlemanly image of the protagonist into account here. Gilbert avoids the extremes of caricature so obvious in the earlier illustrations, but his characters such as Traddles lack Phiz's visual humour — particularly evident in the equivalent illustration in the serial, Traddles and I in conference with the Misses Spenlow in Chapter 41, "Dora's Aunts" (June 1850). Since Gilbert has elected to mention David's inadvertently backing Traddles into the fireplace, it seems odd that David is moving forward and that there is no fireplace in the illustration. Instead, Gilbert has David's figure crowd that of Traddles out of the frame.
In that Phiz illustration, however, the suitor, his spokesperson, and the maiden aunts are already seated in the parlour, and Traddles (readily identified by his signature hairstyle) is confidently managing the negotiations and David looks earnestly at the two Miss Spenlows. However, the embedded oil paintings are blurry in the Gilbert illustration, and contribute nothing by way of editorial comment to the composition. Moreover, Gilbert's figures are wooden, and the overall effect awkward, when one compares his composition to the original by Phiz. Gilbert has repeated such elements as the caged birds (upper left, not on a side-table, as in the Phiz illustration) and biblically themed oil-painting (upper right), but seems to have been much more interested in the rose pattern on the cloth-covered sofa and refraction of light on the black silk dresses of the spinster sisters than on the interaction between the characters. What is most disturbing, however, is the lack of inner life in the Gilbert figures, especially when one looks at the individually realised, animated features of the four characters in the 1850 original. All that can be said in defense of the frontispiece is that it underscores the importance of this scene in the third volume.
Left: F. O. C. Darley's 1867 photogravure frontispiece for volume one
representing the scene in which David encounters the bizarre second-hand clothing vendor,
When an ugly old man — Ch. 13. Centre: Darley's
frontispiece for volume two, "Janet! Donkeys!" — Ch.
13. Right: Darley's photogravure for the frontispiece of volume four,
Above: Hablot Knight Browne's June 1850 engraving of the interview with Dora's aunts, Traddles and I in conference with the Misses Spenlow.
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