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Master Harry and Norah at Breakfast (tailpiece)
Harold Copping
1924
Line drawing in lithograph
5 inches high by 3 ¾ inches wide (12.5 x 10 cm)
From Character Sketches from Dickens, p. 18.
Scanned image, caption, and commentary below by Philip V. Allingham
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"Well, I took him down Love Lane to the water meadows, and there Master Harry would have drowned himself in another minute a getting out a water-lily for her. But they was tired out. All being so new and strange to them, they were as tired as tired could be. And they laid down on a bank of daisies and fell asleep. ["The Runaway Couple," Children's Stories from Dickens, 16]
Copping clearly wishes readers to remember the children asleep, in each other's arms, even though that is not how Mary Angela Dickens actually ends the story. Reality rather than idyll takes over in the final lines, for Harry and Norah never marry: "And that's all about it. Master Harry's father drove away in the chaise having hold of Master Harry's hand. The elderly lady Mrs. Harry Walmers junior that was never to be (she married a captain long after and went to India) went off next day." (18)
The matter of fact, anti-climactic conclusion of the orally delivered tale was not to Copping's liking. Thus, he transforms the innocents into "Dream Children" asleep after their sojourn in the water meadows of Love Lane. Unfortunately, in composing the tailpiece Copping has omitted the final reunion of the story as Harry's father gently awakens him.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File (Checkmark), 1998.
Dickens, Charles. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by E. A. Abbey. 19 vols. The Household Edition. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876. Vol. 3.
Dickens, Charles. Christmas Stories from "Household Words" and "All the Year Round." Illustrated by Edward Dalziel. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877, rpt. 1892, 1910. Vol. 21.
Dickens, Charles. Christmas Stories from "Household Words" and "All the Year Round." Illustrated by Fred Walker, F. A. Fraser, Harry French, E. G. Dalziel, J. Manhony, Townley Green, and Charles Green. The Centenary Edition. 36 vols. London: Chapman & Hall; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911.
Dickens, Charles. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. 16.
Dickens, Mary Angela, Percy Fitzgerald, Captain Edric Vredenburg, and Others. Illustrated by Harold Copping with eleven coloured lithographs. Children's Stories from Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1893.
Dickens, Mary Angela [Charles Dickens' grand-daughter]. Dickens' Dream Children. London, Paris, New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, Ltd., 1924.
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 9 October 2023