"All that remained of the desperate and unfortunate Eustacia" — Arthur Hopkins' twelfth and final monthly illustration for Thomas Hardy's "The Return of the Native" (December 1878)

All that remained of the desperate and unfortunate Eustacia. by Arthur Hopkins for Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native. Plate 12. Belgravia, A Magazine of Fashion and Amusement (December 1878): Vol. XXXVII; vertically mounted, 4.3125 inches high by 6.375 inches wide, framed, to face page 229. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Text illustrated: The Tragic and Sensational Conclusion for Eustacia

At this moment his heart bounded to hear footsteps running towards him, and two men, roused by Thomasin, appeared at the brink above. They ran to where Venn was, and helped him in lifting out the apparently drowned persons, separating them, and laying them out upon the grass. Venn turned the light upon their faces. The one who had been uppermost was Yeobright; he who had been completely submerged was Wildeve.

“Now we must search the hole again,” said Venn. “A woman is in there somewhere. Get a pole.”

One of the men went to the footbridge and tore off the handrail. The reddleman and the two others then entered the water together from below as before, and with their united force probed the pool forwards to where it sloped down to its central depth. Venn was not mistaken in supposing that any person who had sunk for the last time would be washed down to this point, for when they had examined to about half-way across something impeded their thrust.

“Pull it forward,” said Venn, and they raked it in with the pole till it was close to their feet.

Venn vanished under the stream, and came up with an armful of wet drapery enclosing a woman’s cold form, which was all that remained of the desperate Eustacia. [Book Five, "The Discovery," Chapter IX, "Sights and Sounds draw the Wanderers together," 229]

Commentary: The Sensational Conclusion of a (Putative) Adultery Novel

Having the climax of the Sensation Novel come so early in the final number must have seemed strange to the serial reader, who would have cared little for such a drawn-out dénouement as Book Six, “Aftercourses,” Chapters I-IV. However, the magazine seems to have required an instalment of approximately thirty pages, so the climactic scene, building on the final pages and the illustration of Instalment Eleven, had to be followed by Hardy's rounding out the action with the courtship and marriage of Diggory Venn and the wealthy widow, Mrs. Wildeve.

As we draw aside the the twelfth and final opening curtain of Hardy's year-long Sensation Novel, we are determined to read to the climax as quickly as possible. Having seen the illustration already, we suspect that Eustacia's original plan to have Wildeve drive her in his gig to catch the midnight packet-boat from Budmouth has gone terribly awry, and that either she or her driver (or, perhaps, both) has somehow fallen into the rain-swollen Shadwater Weir, not far from The Quiet Woman Inn. Through the December 1878 dark-plate frontispiece Hopkins prepares us for the tragic outcome — the drownings of both Wildeve and Eustacia — without actually betraying in advance the identities of those pulled from the turbulent waters of ten-hatch weir, and whether that person or those persons are still alive.

We are not much engaged by the prospect of a dénouement in Book the Sixth, Chapters 1-4, since we are so intensely focussed on the climax in the final chapter of Book the Fifth, which leads off the final number. The conclusion, nevertheless, accords with the stern morality of the Sensation Novel as Hardy exploits the possible outcomes of marital infidelity, awarding a relentless nemesis to the would-be transgressors, but conferring a ₤10,000 inheritance on Thomasin as Wildeve's young widow. Not unsurprisingly, “Aftercourses” concludes with the courtship and marriage of “dairyman” Venn (alienated reddleman no longer) and the wealthy widow. The volume of 1895 concludes with a second illustration, a Map of Thomas Hardy's Wessex to complement the geographical frontispiece (see below).

Related Materials

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Bibliography

Hardy, Thomas. Book Five, “The Discovery,” Chapter IX, and Book Six, “Aftercourses,” Chapters I-IV. The Return of the Native. Illustrated by Arthur Hopkins. Belgravia, A Magazine of Fashion and Amusement (London), Vol. XXXVII. December 1878 [final monthly number]. Pp. 225-256.

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

Purdy, Richard Little, and Millgate, Michael, eds. The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy . Oxford: Clarendon, 1978. Vol. 1 (1840-1892).

Seymour-Smith, Martin. Hardy. London: Bloomsbury, 1994.

Vann, J. Don. “Part Twelve. Book V, "The Discovery," Chapter 9; Book VI, "Aftercourses," Chapters 1-4. December 1878. The Return of the Native in Belgravia, January-December 1878.” Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. 84.

Wright, Sarah Bird. "The Return of the Native." Thomas Hardy A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Works. New York: Facts On File, 2002. Pp. 261-270.

6 February 2001

Last updated 13 June 2025