A Weak Defence shows a man and a woman seated on an iron-framed bed. The figures are pushed close together in the steeply foreshortened space between the head and foot of the bed. There is an interplay of hatching, crosshatching and unprinted paper, the last of which creates a brilliant highlight on the man’s leg, crossed at the knee. Along with Et Delator Es… [Bromberg 168], A Weak Defence is one of two pure engravings in the Carfax series published in 1915. This rare first-state impression of A Weak Defence was ripped at some point in its history and staining along the top and right-hand sides of the platemark indicates the site of a repair.