"I Have Told My Husband Everything, and He Is Looking Over My Shoulder as I Write" by Walter Paget (1863-1935)

I Have Told My Husband Everything, and He Is Looking Over My Shoulder as I Write

Walter Paget (1863-1935)

1860

18 cm x 14.8 cm

Illustrated London News (15 October 1892): 480

Scene from Chapter VIII, "A Miscalculation" (p. 481, bottom of column one) of Thomas Hardy's The Pursuit of The Well-Beloved: A Sketch of a Temperament.

Scanned image, caption, and commentary by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. ]

Commentary

Although the plate may suggest complete harmony between husband and wife in the matter of announcing to a former beau that Marcia is married, the second plate in this instalment more accurately characterizes their relationship. Marcia's pride clashes with Jocelyn's in the matter of their fathers' characters and business rivalry in Portland's stone trade. From utter confidence in the matter of the discarded lover at the beginning of Chapter VIII, their relationship quickly deteriorates into the verbal and physical altercation at the close

References

Hardy, Thomas. The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved. The Illustrated London News, 8 October--17 December, 1892. Pp. 426-775.

Hardy, Thomas. The Well-Beloved with The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved (1892). Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Classics, 2000.

Jackson, Arlene M. Illustration and the Novels of Thomas Hardy. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981.

Last modified 25 August 2002