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Daniel Defoe.
Justyne, Leitch, Macquoid, Morgan, Pasquier, & Thomas
Engravers: Butterworth and Heath
1863-64
Wood-engraving
15.5 cm high by 12.6 cm wide.
Facing title-page of Robinson Crusoe.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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The London publishers Cassell, Petter, and Galpin have taken full advantage of the realistic possibilities of the new style of composite wood-block engraving synonymous with the style of the New Men of the Sixties, notably such innovative illustrators as Fred Walker and such skilled engravers as the Dalziels, Thomas and Edward. The ample program of illustrations for this volume, the majority occupying full pages, reflect the commercial illustration of Sixties' veering away from Cruikshankian caricature and Phizzian comicality, and towards a much greater of degree realism, evident in the carefully realised tropical foliage in the foreground and the sharp aerial perspective that places the wreck on the horizon in the opening page, on which illustration dominates and text seems secondary as Crusoe, with Poll the parrot on his shoulder, surveys the wreck through a telescope.
The frontispiece establishes immediately that, despite a considerable tradition that regarded Defoe as a mere journalistic ghost-writer, the story is a novel rather than an autobiography. The illustration further implies that Defoe was an Augustan writer, wearing a wig that in the Victorian period was reminiscent of the British judiciary. An image that would better have reflected his status as as a radical would have been that of the writer in the pillory at Newgate Prison in 1703, without the benefit of whig and silk gown, and surrounded by uniformed troops — and well-wishers attempting to pelt him with flowers rather than the usual ammunition at such events, rotten fruit and vegetables. He served a sentence of three days for having published The Shortest Way with Dissenters, a work which the legal system ruled was deemed to be seditious libel, since it had attacked the hypocrisy of the established church.
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner. As Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.
Last modified 7 March 2018
