I presented my piece
Wal Paget (1863-1935)
half-page lithograph
14.6 cm high by 12 cm wide, irregularly vignetted.
1891
Robinson Crusoe, facing page 146; signed "Wal Paget" lower left.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Passage Illustrated: Crusoe demonstrates the use of the musket in hunting
After I had been two or three days returned to my castle, I thought that, in order to bring Friday off from his horrid way of feeding, and from the relish of a cannibal’s stomach, I ought to let him taste other flesh; so I took him out with me one morning to the woods. I went, indeed, intending to kill a kid out of my own flock; and bring it home and dress it; but as I was going I saw a she-goat lying down in the shade, and two young kids sitting by her. I catched hold of Friday. “Hold,” said I, “stand still;” and made signs to him not to stir: immediately I presented my piece, shot, and killed one of the kids. The poor creature, who had at a distance, indeed, seen me kill the savage, his enemy, but did not know, nor could imagine how it was done, was sensibly surprised, trembled, and shook, and looked so amazed that I thought he would have sunk down. He did not see the kid I shot at, or perceive I had killed it, but ripped up his waistcoat to feel whether he was not wounded; and, as I found presently, thought I was resolved to kill him: for he came and kneeled down to me, and embracing my knees, said a great many things I did not understand; but I could easily see the meaning was to pray me not to kill him. [Chapter XV, "Friday's Education," p. 151]
Commentary: After Crusoe rescues Friday
A constant in the various nineteenth-century programs of illustration for the novel is the scene in which Crusoe decides to intervene in the cannibals' rite by coming to the rescue of one of their intended victims.However, whereas the earlier illustrators such as Thomas Stothardhave focussed on Crusoe's serving as Friday's saviour and preserver as he runs from his captors, Paget explores Crusoe's "educating" Friday to European technology and thinking, including his superior technology and his ability to strike down prey from a distance.
The Europeanizing of Man Friday, already wearing breeches and a goatskin jerkin in emulation of his master, occurs in the context of the tropical jungle, with a palm tree in the background and a gigantic, broad-leafed plant in the foreground, effectively shielding the hunters from the view of their prey. Such plants would have been familiar to English readers only through the medium of botanical greenhouses such as those at Kew Gardens on the Thames.
Related Material
- Daniel Defoe
- Illustrations of Robinson Crusoe by various artists
- Illustrations of children’s editions
- The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe il. H. M. Brock at Project Gutenberg
- The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe at Project Gutenberg
Related Scenes in Stothard (1790), the 1818 Children's Book, Cruikshank (1831), Cassell's (1863-64), Phiz (1864), and Gilbert(1867?)
Left: George Cruikshank's 1831 realisation of the rescue scene, Crusoe having just rescued Friday (frontispiece, Volume I). Centre: Phiz's steel-engraved frontispiece, with the surviving pursuer about to attack the unwitting Crusoe, Robinson Crusoe rescues Friday (1864). Right: Realistic but emotionally muted realisation of the same scene, Crusoe and Friday (1863-64). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Left: Stothard's 1790 realisation of the rescue scene, an illustration of which Cruikshank was probably aware, Robinson Crusoe first sees and rescues his man Friday (copper-plate engraving, [Chapter XIV, "A Dream Realised"). Centre: Phiz's steel-engraved frontispiece, with the surviving pursuer about to attack the unwitting Crusoe, Robinson Crusoe rescues Friday (1864). Right: Colourful realisation of the same scene, with a decidedly subservient and Negroid Friday: Friday's first interview with Robinson Crusoe. (1818).
Left: The 1815 children's book woodblock engraving of Crusoe bidding Friday to rise, On his coming close to me, he kneeled down again.Centre: Sir John Gilbert's realisation of the rescue scene, Crusoe rescues Friday (1867?). Right: Realistic but emotionally muted realisation of the same scene, Crusoe and Friday (1863-64).
Reference
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner. As Related by Himself. With upwards of One Hundred and Twenty Original Illustrations by Walter Paget. London, Paris, and Melbourne: Cassell, 1891.
Last modified 3 May 2018