Dickens's "The Old Lady's Daily Walk in the Garden" by Harold Copping (1924)

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The Old Lady's Daily Walk in the Garden

Harold Copping

1924

Line drawing

16.7 cm by 12.9 cm (6 ⅝ by 5 inches)

From Children's Stories from Dickens, p. 123.

This revelation scene follows hard upon "Mr. Tupman is smitten" because it involves Joe's retailing Rachael Wardle's conduct with Tracy Tupman to her elderly mother after Joe's observing the humorously romantic encounter with "the spinster aunt" and one of Pickwick's "reporters" (Part 3, June 1836, Ch. 8).

Scanned image, caption, and commentary below by Philip V. Allingham

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Passage Illustrated: Old Mrs. Wardle's Somnolent Helper

First of all he had to fetch from a peg behind the old lady's bedroom door a close, black satin bonnet, a warm cotton shawl and a thin stick; and then the old lady, after put on the bonnet and shawl at her leisure, would lean one hand on her stick and the other on the fat boy's shoulder, and walk leisurely to the arbour, where the fat boy would leave her to enjoy the fresh air for half an hour. . . . . [121]

The old lady began to shake. "Well, Joe?" she said, wondering if he meant to rob her of her loose coin, knowing that she was too old and feeble to scream for help. "I'm sure I have been a good mistress to you, Joe. You have never had too much to do, and you have always had enough to eat."

This last appeal went straight to the Fat Boy's heart.

"I knows I has," he replied.

"Then what can you want to do now?" asked the old lady. The Fat Boy came closer.

"I wants to make your flesh creep," he said.

"But why?" asked the old lady, trembling again. The Fat Boy explained. He had seen Miss Rachael — Mrs. Wardle's daughter — in this very arbour with one of Mr. Pickwick's party — Mr. Tracy Tupman, to be exact — kissing her hand. [122]

The Fat Boy in Other Editions of the Novel (1836 to 1912)

Phiz's original illustration depicts an extremely portly, uniformed page in The Fat Boy Awake Again (first volume edition, November, 1837)
Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s 1867 Diamond Edition character study exaggerates the boy's weight problem for comic effect in The Fat Boy
Thomas Nast's American Household Edition offers a cartoon-like rendering of the yawning Fat Boy in "He knows nothing of what has happened," he whispered (1873)
Phiz's revised illustration depicts a less corpulent, blonde-haired page in Mr. Tupman looked round. There was the fat boy (Household Edition, 1874)
Two Harry Furniss studies of Joe, The Fat Boy in the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)

Other Copping Representations of Joe, The Fat Boy

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. Illustrated by Robert Seymour, Robert W. Buss, and Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). London: Chapman & Hall: 1836-37.

Dickens, Charles. "Pickwick Papers. Illustrated by Robert Seymour and Hablot Knight Browne. London: Chapman & Hall, 1896.

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, Bernard W., and Kate Perigini [Charles Dickens' daughter]. Character Sketches from Dickens. Illustrated by Harold Copping. London: Raphael Tuck, 1924.

Created 22 September 2023