Princess Alicia
Sir John Gilbert
Wood engraving
8 x 5 inches"
Illustration for Dickens's A Holiday Romance in Our Young Folks, An Illustrated Magazine For Boys and Girls, Vol. IV (facing p. 133)
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Commentary
In his second plate for the series, "The Princess Alicia" (Vol. IV, No. 3), Gilbert's choice of scene and manner of execution are ineffective, despite the fact that the picture compels the reader to wait over four pages for the textual complement, thereby generating some suspense. Gilbert has determined to present the heroine and her siblings, the seventeen young princes and prin-cesses, as cooks. But "When the broth came tumbling out . . . , they clapped their hands" (133) has far less potential for illustration than either the open-ing or closing appearances of the Good Fairy Grandmarina. Though the fire-irons, bowls, and cooks' caps made of old newspapers are well drawn, these domestic details hardly excite the interest (let alone the imagination) of the young viewer: the broth, after all, is far less miraculous than the fish-bone for which this instalment of A Holiday Romance is usually named. Further, this was Gilbert's greatest opportunity to render a dynamic female character, but he has elected instead to show Alicia in a purely domestic role, as care-giver and cook rather than as a protagonist faced with the moral choice of when she should resort to magic instead of her own resourcefulness.
Last modified April 19, 2002