Dickens's "Codlin and Short in the graveyard" by Harold Copping (1893) (original) (raw)

Commentary

Copping takes a highly realistic interpretation of the puppeteers; ironically in this re-telling neither of these amusing characters appears in the letterpress. This churchyard scene anticipates the final vignette in the volume, Grandfather Trent alone among the tombs. Moving away entirely from the caricatural style of the Clockworks Team in Master Humphrey's Clock, Copping makes the comic pair who are constantly at odds with one another seem rather prosaic, but his treatment shows the realistic influences of the British and American Household Editions of the 1870s.

Earlier Illustrations of the Punch-and-Judy Men (1840-1910)

Above: The style of the second member of the team of illustrators, Phiz, was ideally to the depiction of the seedy travelling puppeteers, Codlin and Short, repairing their properties: Punch in the Churchyard(Part 17: 11 July 1840). Phiz shows Nell's bringing her sewing skills to bear on the repairs Codlin and Short need to make to several puppets.

Left: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Diamond Edition woodblock engraving of the Mutt-and-Jeff team Codlin and Short (1867). Centre: Charles Green offers a more prosaic but also more realistic view of the Punch-and-Judy men: Nelly, kneeling down beside the box, was soon busily engaged in her task (1876). Right: W. H. C. Groome's lithograph of the same scene: Codlin and Short (1900) offers photographic realism, but little charm.

Above: Worth's more prosaic Household Edition illustration establishes the ill-kempt natures of Codlin and Short in Nelly was soon engaged in her task (1872).

Left: Clayton J. Clarke's amusing caricatures of the Punch-and-Judy performers in the Player's Cigarette card series: Codlin(Card No. 25) and Short (Card No. 25), both dating from 1910. Right: Harry Furniss's realisation of the same scene in the Charles Dickens Library edition, Codlin and Short in the Churchyard< (1910).

Various Artists' Illustrations for Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop (1841-1924)

• The Old Curiosity ShopIllustrated: A Team Effort by "The Clock Works."
• George Cattermole (13 plates selected)
• Hablot Knight Browne (61 wood-engravings)
• Felix O. C. Darley (4 photogravure plates)
• Sol Eytinge, Jr. (12 wood engravings)
• Thomas Worth (54 wood engravings)
• Charles Green (39 wood engravings)
• W. H. C. Groome (8 lithographs plus engraved title)
• J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") (13 lithographs from watercolours)
• Harry Furniss (31 lithographs plus engraved title)

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). London: Chapman and Hall, 1841. Rpt., 1849 by Bradbury and Evans (3 vols. in 2).

_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Thomas Worth. The Household Edition. New York: Harper & Bros., 1872. I.

_____. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Charles Green. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876.

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.

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.

Created 26 September 2023