[Sergeant Cuff engages the Verinders' gardener one final time on subject of raising roses] — uncaptioned headnote vignette for "First Period: The Loss of the Diamond (1848), The Events related by Gabriel Betteredge, house-steward in the service of Julia, Lady Verinder." Chapter 21 (continued). The initial illustration for the thirteenth instalment in Harper's Weekly (28 March 1868), p. 197 in serial, in volume, p. 94. Wood-engraving, 8.5 x 5.4 cm. (3 ⅜ by 2 &fra18; inches). [In the thirteenth headnote vignette, the Harper & Bros. house illustrator "C. G. B." presents the scene in which the eccentric detective pays a final visit to the Verinders' head gardener, Mr. Begbie, to debate his position ("grass, not gravel") on the raising roses. The vignette contrasts the tall, lean London detective and the short, stout Yorkshire gardener as both contemplate the rose garden, even though the conversation in the text occurs in the conservatory.]
The serial illustrations appear here by courtesy of the E. J. Pratt Fine Arts Library, University of Toronto, and the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, University of British Columbia.
Passage suggested by the Headnote Vignette for the Thirteenth Instalment
"Oh!" I said. "You think it's all over then, here?"
"I think," answered Sergeant Cuff, "that Lady Verinder is one of the cleverest women in England. I also think a rose much better worth looking at than a diamond. Where is the gardener, Mr. Betteredge?"
There was no getting a word more out of him on the matter of the Moonstone. He had lost all interest in his own inquiry; and he would persist in looking for the gardener. An hour afterwards, I heard them at high words in the conservatory, with the dog-rose once more at the bottom of the dispute. — "First Period: The Loss of the Diamond (1848), The Events related by Gabriel Betteredge, house-steward in the service of Julia, Lady Verinder," Ch. XXI (continued), p. 197; p. 92 in volume.
Commentary
The headnote vignette contains yet another reference to Sergeant Cuff's fondness for roses, an eccentricity that Wilkie Collins may have based on the family background of the "real life" Sergeant Cuff, Detective Inspector Jonathan 'Jack' Whicher (1 October 1814–29 June 1881), one of the original eight members of the newly-formed Detective Branch, founded at Scotland Yard in 1842. That Whicher, the son of a Camberwell gardener, would logically have considerable expertise in horticulture, may explain Cuff's persistent interest in the raising of roses. Although the text specifies that Cuff discusses the dog rose in the conservatory of the manor house, the artist shows the pair side by side, outside.
The celebrated Scotland Yard detective, having been given his dismissal by Lady Julia Verinder because his "theory of the crime," focusses on her daughter as the thief. He now contemplates retiring to Dorking (then a village south of London), where we shall find him several hundred pages later, cultivating roses. Like Whicher with the Constance Kent trial, he reappears at the resolution of the crime when Godfrey Ablewhite is found dead, disguised as a merchant sailor.
Related Material
- The Moonstone and British India (1857, 1868, and 1876)
- Detection and Disruption inside and outside the 'quiet English home' in The Moonstone
- George Du Maurier, "Do you think a young lady's advice worth having?" — p. 94.
- Illustrations by F. A. Fraser for Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone: A Romance (1890)
- Illustrations by John Sloan for Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone: A Romance (1908)
- 1910 Frontispiece: "He felt himself suddenly seized round the neck", p. 279.
- The 1944 Illustrations by William Sharp for Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL.]
Bibliography
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone: A Romance. With sixty-six illustrations by William Jewett. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Vol. 12 (1868), 4 January through 8 August 1868, pp. 5-529.
________. The Moonstone: A Romance. All the Year Round. 1 January-8 August 1868.
_________. The Moonstone: A Novel. With many illustrations. First edition. New York & London: Harper and Brothers, [July] 1868.
_________. The Moonstone: A Novel. With 19 illustrations. Second edition. New York & London: Harper and Brothers, 1874.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. Illustrated by George Du Maurier and F. A. Fraser. London: Chatto and Windus, 1890.
_________. The Moonstone, Parts One and Two. The Works of Wilkie Collins, vols. 5 and 6. New York: Peter Fenelon Collier, 1900.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. With four illustrations by John Sloan. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1908.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. Illustrated by A. S. Pearse. London & Glasgow: Collins, 1910, rpt. 1930.
_________. The Moonstone. Illustrated by William Sharp. New York: Doubleday, 1946.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. With nine illustrations by Edwin La Dell. London: Folio Society, 1951.
Gregory, E. R. "Murder in Fact." The New Republic. 22 July 1878, pp. 33-34.
Karl, Frederick R. "Introduction." Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone. Scarborough, Ontario: Signet, 1984. Pp. 1-21.
Leighton, Mary Elizabeth, and Lisa Surridge. "The Transatlantic Moonstone: A Study of the Illustrated Serial in Harper's Weekly." Victorian Periodicals Review Volume 42, Number 3 (Fall 2009): pp. 207-243. Accessed 1 July 2016. http://englishnovel2.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2014/01/42.3.leighton-moonstone-serializatation.pdf
Nayder, Lillian. Unequal Partners: Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, & Victorian Authorship. London and Ithaca, NY: Cornll U. P., 2001.
Peters, Catherine. The King of the Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. London: Minerva, 1991.
Reed, John R. "English Imperialism and the Unacknowledged crime of The Moonstone. Clio 2, 3 (June, 1973): 281-290.
Stewart, J. I. M. "A Note on Sources." Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966, rpt. 1973. Pp. 527-8.
Vann, J. Don. "The Moonstone in All the Year Round, 4 January-8 1868." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Pp. 48-50.
Winter, William. "Wilkie Collins." Old Friends: Being Literary Recollections of Other Days. New York: Moffat, Yard, & Co., 1909. Pp. 203-219.
Created 27 October 2016
Last modified 26 October 2025