1863-64. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, with upwards of one hundred illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin. . . . . This edition was initially printed serially as part of ​ "Cassell's Family Library." A group of artists and engravers worked together to create the illustrations, leading Blewett to call it the “least satisfying” of the heavily illustrated editions due to its lack of "harmony and unity of vision"​(103). Illustrators included Percy William Justyne, Richard Principal Leitch, Thomas R. Macquoid, Matt Somerville Morgan, J. Abbott Pasquier, George Housman Thomas, and possibly Harrison W. Weir, whose name does not appear on any of the plates; engravers included the London firm Butterworth and Heath, Thomas Bolton, Thomas Cobb, James Davis Cooper, William J. Linton, Richard S. Marriott, William Jenks Morgan, George Pearson, William Luson Thomas, and Frederick Wentworth. Because so many were involved in the production, it is often hard to tell who contributed to each plate; where attributions are clear they are noted in the finding aid. Thomas R. Macquoid designed borders for each page in this edition, including text-only pages; Blewett calls the borders a ​"last flowering of literary romanticism in book illustration."​ [PACSCL Finding Aids]

Illustrations: Part One

Illustrations: Part Two

Illustrators and engravers discussed elsewhere on the Victorian Web:

Related material:

The Recurring Motifs in the Illustrations

General pictorial themes and backdrops in the 104 illustrations include the following:

Although women of any race are rarely depicted in the 104 illustrations (six in total), Crusoe, as one would expect, dominates the program: he occurs in fifty-five of the illustrations, and is prominent (in cameos and closeups) in thirty-five. He appears in some twenty-three capacities: as a son, a slave, a businessman and planter, a salvager, a builder, a diarist, a hunter-gatherer, an explorer, a patient, a basket-weaver, a goat-herd, a sower, a teacher, a boat-builder, a sailor, a tailor, a goat-milker, a woodsman, a soldier, a military strategist, a diplomat, a religionist, as a destroyer of idols, and as Friday's companion. Necessarily, given his age and the story's shift in setting and action in part two, Crusoe is less present in The Farther Adventures.

Related Material

Bibliography

Blewett, David. "Robinson Crusoe, Friday, and the Noble Savage: The Illustration of the Rescue of Friday Scene in the Eighteenth Century." Man and Nature, Vol. 5 (1986), 29–49. https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/man/1986-v5-man0238/1011850ar.pdf

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, with introductory verses by Bernard Barton, and illustrated with numerous engravings from drawings by George Cruikshank expressly designed for this edition. 2 vols. London: Printed at the Shakespeare Press, by W. Nichol, for John Major, Fleet Street, 1831.

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Illustrated by Edward H. Wehnert. London: Bell and Daldy, 1862.

De Foe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.

De Foe, Daniel. Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, including A Memoir of the Author, and an Essay on his Writings. Illustrated by Phiz. London & New York: Routledge, Warne, and Routledge, 1864.

De Foe, Daniel. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Written by Himself. Illustrated by Gilbert, Cruikshank, and Brown. London: Darton and Hodge [1867?].

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. (1831). Major's Edition. London: Chatto & Windus, 1890.

"The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Extra-Extra-Illustrated​ (T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1820):​ Scope and Contents."​ PACSCL Finding Aids.​ http://dla.library.upenn.edu/cocoon/dla/pacscl/ead.html?id=PACSCL_RBCat_RBCat&sort=date_added_sort%20asc&fq=name_facet%3A%22Stothard%2C%20Thomas%2C%201755-1834%22&

McLean, Ruari. George Cruikshank: His Life and Work as a Book Illustrator. English Masters of Black-and-White. London: Art and Technics, 1948.

Patten, Robert L. "Phase 2: 'The Finest Things, Next to Rembrandt's,' 1720–1835." Chapter 20, "Thumbnail Designs." George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art, vol. 1: 1792-1835. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers U. P., 1992; London: The Lutterworth Press, 1992. Pp. 325-339.


Last modified 9 April 2018