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The friendly waiter and I
Phiz (Halbot K. Browne)
June 1849
Steel etching
Charles Dickens's David Copperfield
First plate for June 1849 instalment (i. e., second monthly part).
Source: Nonesuch (1937 rpt. 2008), facing p. 66
Image scan and text 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.]
Although the waiter in the first of the second monthly instalment's two illustrations certainly appears benign, the letter-press reveals him to be yet another child-exploiter. David, dwarfed by the chair in which he sits down to dinner at the coaching in on the London Road, seems clearly out of place. Further, Phiz emphasizes the absence of adult superintendence and protection and the boy's vulnerability by excluding other adults from the scene, even in the prints and posters on the wall:
Prints rather than parents overlook the boy's first meal at an inn (V, facing p. 66). The large map on the wall, which recalls the globe on the monthly wrapper and anticipates the map hanging behind Mr. Peggotty at the end of his search for Em'ly (XL, facing p. 578), suggests the great world that David is now encountering for the first time. Before the machinations of the "friendly" waiter are disclosed by the text, their outcome is anticipated by the other pictures on the dining room wall. That he is to be tricked out of his dinner is made clear by a scene of Sancho Panza, bewildered as the enchanter's wand draws an empty circle where his plate should be (span class="book">Don Quixote XLVII); by the depiction of the fable of the Fox and the Stork; and by the theater bill advertising . The reader recalls this illustration when Davy, in his blacking house days, more successfully places his "magnificent order" for a drink, though he is scarcely larger than the infant Bacchus in the pub window (XI, facing p. 160). [Cohen, 101-103]
The focus of the illustration appears to be the "twinkling-eyed, pimple-faced man, with his hair standing upright all over his head" (Nonesuch, 66), drawing the viewer's attention to the space between the dominating figure and the diminutive customer, occupied by the steaming food, the bottle of sauce, and the covered ale pot. To the right is the carved joint, to which for the boy the waiter effectively blocks access. The top print, of a large fish, implies that the best young David can expect is the sight of his dinner.
Cohen, Jane Rabb. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State U.P., 1978.
Dickens, Charles. The Personal History of David Copperfield, il. Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). The Nonesuch Edition. London: Overlook Press, Gerald Duckworth, Worth Press, 1937, rpt. 2008.
Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U.P., 1980.
Last modified 1 August 2009