Uriah Heep
Fred Barnard
1885
19 cm high by 13.7 cm wide (7 ½ inches high by 5 inches wide), vignetted
"Me, Master Copperfield?" said Uriah. "Oh, no! I'm a very 'umble person." — David Copperfield.
One of six lithographs in A Series of Character Sketches from Dickens, from the Original Drawings by Frederick Barnard . . .. Series 3 (1885). [Click on illustration to enlarge it.]
Passage Realised: David's First Private Conversation with the Umble Uriah
As I was getting on the stool opposite, to talk to him more conveniently, I observed that he had not such a thing as a smile about him, and that he could only widen his mouth and make two hard creases down his cheeks, one on each side, to stand for one.
‘I am not doing office-work, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah.
‘What work, then?’ I asked.
‘I am improving my legal knowledge, Master Copperfield,’ said Uriah. ‘I am going through Tidd’s Practice. Oh, what a writer Mr. Tidd is, Master Copperfield!’
My stool was such a tower of observation, that as I watched him reading on again, after this rapturous exclamation, and following up the lines with his forefinger, I observed that his nostrils, which were thin and pointed, with sharp dints in them, had a singular and most uncomfortable way of expanding and contracting themselves — that they seemed to twinkle instead of his eyes, which hardly ever twinkled at all.
‘I suppose you are quite a great lawyer?’ I said, after looking at him for some time.
‘Me, Master Copperfield?’ said Uriah. ‘Oh, no! I’m a very umble person.’
It was no fancy of mine about his hands, I observed; for he frequently ground the palms against each other as if to squeeze them dry and warm, besides often wiping them, in a stealthy way, on his pocket-handkerchief.
‘I am well aware that I am the umblest person going,’ said Uriah Heep, modestly; ‘let the other be where he may. My mother is likewise a very umble person. We live in a numble abode, Master Copperfield, but have much to be thankful for. My father’s former calling was umble. He was a sexton.’ [Chapter XVI, "I Am a New Boy in More Senses than One," Household Edition, 103]
Commentary: Foregrounding Another of the Novel's Most Distinctive Characters
Although Barnard in his series of composite woodblock illustrations in the third volume of Household Edition (1872) foregrounds and emphasizes Dickens's narrator as a child, an adolescent, and a young adult, in his third series of Characters from Dickens (1884-85) he looks intensely at three significant supporting characters: the avuncular Wilkins Micawber, the dastardly and devious Uriah Heep, and the somewhat quirky but benevolent Aunt Betsy Trotwood. All three will have a profound effect on David's moral and emotional development.
With so "galvanic" and marked a caricature as Uriah Heep it has been all too easy for illustrators to render him as a mere cartoon figure of derision rather than a realistic foil to the sometimes naive David: a pertinent example is Harry Furniss's over-the-top denunciation scene, Mr. Micawber achieves the Downfall of Heep — very melodramatic and comedic, but hardly a realistic rendering of the Dickens antagonist who furnishes so much of the novel's plot. Even as he quotes Heep's cant in the caption, Barnard here takes a far more nuanced approach: the many bills on the hook at the side of the desk, for example, are palpable testimonials to his productivity, and he is angular and spare without being laughable or ridiculous. And what are we to make of the law book and briefcase at the foot of the desk, or the plant on the windowsill of his barren cubicle? He looks at us — and we are in David's position — inquisitively, even under the assumed guise of humility. Barnard gives us a sense of a mind constantly at work.
An Umble Gallery: The Heep of Infamy from Various Editions, 1849-1907
eft: Phiz's April 1850 etching signals Heep's rise as Mr. Wickfield's law
partner: Mr. Wickfield and his Partner wait upon my Aunt
in Chapter XXXV, "Depression" (Part 12). Centre: W. H. Groome's realistic lithograph of
Micawber's timely denunciation of Heep for malpractice: "You —
you Heep of infamy." (1907). Right: Fred Barnard's Household Edition study of
Heep's involuntary jerking:
Other Studies of the Disingenuous Pseudo-Self-Effacing Law Clerk (1867-1910)
Left: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s Diamond Edition study of the Heeps without much context: Uriah and His Mother (1867). Centre: Kyd's Player's Cigarette card study Uriah Heep (No. 38, 1910). Right: Harry Furniss's interpretation of the peculiar writhing of the Satanic Uriah: David's Aunt loses patience with Uriah. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Relevant Illustrated Editions of this Novel (1863 through 1910)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 1, 1863)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 2, 1863)
- Sir John Gilbert's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 3, 1863)
- O. C. Darley's Frontispiece in the New York edition (Vol. 4, 1863)
- Sol Eytinge, Junior's 16 wood engravings for the Diamond Edition (1867)
- Fred Barnard's 62 Composite Woodblock Engravings for the Household Edition (1872)
- Clayton J. Clarke (Kyd): Betsey Trotwood, Player's Cigarette Card No. 36 (1910).
- Harry Furniss's Twenty-nine lithographs for the Charles Dickens Library Edition (1910)
Bibliography
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.
Cohen, Jane Rabb. Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus, Ohio: Ohio U. P., 1980.
Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ("Phiz"). The Centenary Edition. 2 vols. London and New York: Chapman & Hall, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911.
_______. The Personal History of David Copperfield. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. Vol. V.
_______. David Copperfield, with 61 illustrations by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. III.
_______. The Personal History and Experiences of David Copperfield. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Company, 1910. Vol. X.
Hammerton, J. A., ed. The Dickens Picture-Book: A Record of the the Dickens Illustrations. London: Educational Book, 1910.
Steig, Michael. Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington & London: Indiana U. P., 1978.
A Series of Character Sketches from Dickens, from the Original Drawings by Frederick Barnard, Being Facsimiles of Original Drawings by Fred. Barnard. Series 3: Wilkins Micawber; Miss Betsy Trotwood; Captain Edward Cuttle; Uriah Heep; Dick Swiveller and The Marchioness; and Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1885.
Created 2 February 2025