Mrs. Wragge, sleeping over a book — the headnote vignette for Wilkie Collins’s No Name, first published in Harper’s Weekly [Vol. VI. — No. 284] — Number 13, “The Second Scene. Skeldergate, York.” Chapters II-III, page 365 (the 7 June 1862 instalment): 9.7 cm high by 5.6 cm wide, or 3 ⅞ inches high by 2 ¼ inches wide, vignetted, text on p. 349 (volume edition, p. 90); with the regular illustration, “I say — you won't be angry with me? — I should so like to try your bonnet on.” in the volume edition, p. 85. Wood-engraving 11.6 cm high by 11.6 cm wide, or 4 ½ inches square, framed. The 7 June 1862 instalment in All the Year Round contained only the second chapter in this sequence; next week’s number was just Chapter III.
Passage Illustrated in the Vignette: Dozy Mrs. Matilda Wragge
Prostrated by mental exertion, Mrs. Wragge was pursuing the course of the omelette in dreams. Her head was twisted one way, and her body the other. She snored meekly. At intervals one of her hands raised itself in the air, shook an imaginary frying-pan, and dropped again with a faint thump on the cookery-book in her lap. At the sound of her husband’s voice, she started to her feet, and confronted him with her mind fast asleep, and her eyes wide open. [“The Second Scene. Skeldergate, York.” Chapter II, page 365 in serial, page 90 in volume]
Passage Illustrated in the Main Plate: Magdalen Makes Mrs. Wragge’s Acquaintance
She dipped a towel in water, and pressed it on the hot and helpless head which Mrs. Wragge submitted to her with the docility of a sick child.
“What a pretty hand you’ve got!” said the poor creature, feeling the relief of the coolness and taking Magdalen’s hand, admiringly, in her own. “How soft and white it is! I try to be a lady; I always keep my gloves on — but I can’t get my hands like yours. I’m nicely dressed, though, ain’t I? I like dress; it’s a comfort to me. I’m always happy when I’m looking at my things. I say — you won’t be angry with me? — I should so like to try your bonnet on.”
Magdalen humored her, with the ready compassion of the young. She stood smiling and nodding at herself in the glass, with the bonnet perched on the top of her head. “I had one as pretty as this, once,” she said — “only it was white, not black. I wore it when the captain married me.” [“The Second Scene. Skeldergate, York.” Chapter II, page 365 in serial, page 85 in volume]
Commentary: “Scattered” Mrs. Wragge Introduced in Two Plates with Cook Book and Bonnet
Here as many times before the headnote vignette actually anticipates a moment much later in the instalment than the main illustration. In the main plate, Mrs. Tilda Wragge cheerfully (and vacuously) discusses bonnets with Magdalen before falling asleep over her cookbook at the curtain of the weekly number, a moment which coincides with the conclusion of Chapter II. Clearly the Sensation formula of “Make ’em laugh, make ’em cry, make ’em wait" is in operation as the reader tries to guess how either of the Wragges can assist Magdalen in her quest to regain her fortune — although the Captain has announced himself as swindler. Certainly in both the second chapter’s text and its illustrations Collins seems to have introduced the giantess Mrs. Wragge merely for the sake of comic relief.
As with the previous pair of illustrations involving just the Captain, here Mclenan presents the Wragges as mere caricatures, filling out the sombre, realistic image of the almost expressionless Magdalen Vanstone in deep Victorian mourning. Mclennan makes it difficult for us to read Magdalen’s face, so that we must gauge her reaction by perusing the accompanying letterpress as she becomes the Wragges’ guest for the night.
Related Material
- Frontispiece to Wilkie Collins’s No Name (1864) by John Everett Millais
- Victorian Paratextuality: Pictorial Frontispieces and Pictorial Title-Pages
- Wilkie Collins's No Name (1862): Charles Dickens, Sheridan's The Rivals, and the Lost Franklin Expedition
- "The Law of Abduction": Marriage and Divorce in Victorian Sensation and Mission Novels
- Gordon Thomson's A Poser from Fun (5 April 1862)
- Kate Egan's Playthings to Men: Women, Power, and Money in Gaskell and Trollope
- Philip V. Allingham, The Victorian Sensation Novel, 1860-1880 — "preaching to the nerves instead of the judgment"
Image scans and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use the 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 in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Blain, Virginia. “Introduction” and “Explanatory Notes” to Wilkie Collins's No Name. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
