1863-64. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, with upwards of one hundred illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin. . . . . This edition was initially printed serially as part of "Cassell's Family Library." A group of artists and engravers worked together to create the illustrations, leading Blewett to call it the “least satisfying” of the heavily illustrated editions due to its lack of "harmony and unity of vision"(103). Illustrators included Percy William Justyne, Richard Principal Leitch, Thomas R. Macquoid, Matt Somerville Morgan, J. Abbott Pasquier, George Housman Thomas, and possibly Harrison W. Weir, whose name does not appear on any of the plates; engravers included the London firm Butterworth and Heath, Thomas Bolton, Thomas Cobb, James Davis Cooper, William J. Linton, Richard S. Marriott, William Jenks Morgan, George Pearson, William Luson Thomas, and Frederick Wentworth. Because so many were involved in the production, it is often hard to tell who contributed to each plate; where attributions are clear they are noted in the finding aid. Thomas R. Macquoid designed borders for each page in this edition, including text-only pages; Blewett calls the borders a "last flowering of literary romanticism in book illustration." [PACSCL Finding Aids]
Illustrations: Part One
- Frontispiece: Portrait of Daniel Defoe
- Crusoe on the Island
- Crusoe advised by his Father
- The Shipwreck at Yarmouth Roads
- The Attack by the Sallee Rover
- Crusoe a Slave
- Crusoe escapes with Xury
- Crusoe picked up by the Portuguese ship
- Crusoe and the Planters
- The Shipwreck
- Crusoe loading his raft
- Crusoe makes a little Tent with a Sail
- Crusoe writing his Journal
- Crusoe discovers Goats on the island
- Crusoe discovers the Barley
- The Wreck
- Crusoe finds a Turtle
- Crusoe ill reading the Bible
- Crusoe making Baskets
- Crusoe in his Bower
- Crusoe leading the Young Kid
- Crusoe sowing Corn
- Crusoe teaching his Parrot to talk
- Crusoe makes a Boat
- Crusoe making a Coat
- Crusoe sails out of his Creek
- Crusoe at Dinner
- Crusoe sees a Foot-print in the Sand
- Crusoe milking Goats
- Crusoe fences a Paddock for his Goats
- Crusoe on the Look-out on the Hill
- Crusoe finds a Dying Goat
- Crusoe in his Fort
- Crusoe visits the Spanish Ship
- Crusoe sleeping in his Boat
- Crusoe and Friday
- Friday burying the Dead
- Crusoe and Friday out Shooting
- Crusoe instructing Friday
- Crusoe and Friday on the Hill
- Crusoe and Friday felling Wood
- Crusoe rescues the Spaniard
- Crusoe conferring with the Spaniard
- Crusoe sees an English ship
- Crusoe discovers Himself to the English Captain
- The Mutineers
- The Mutineers overpowered
- Death of the Rebel Captain
- The Captain hung at the Yard-arm
- Crusoe arrives at Lisbon
- Crusoe's troop on the march
- Friday and the Bear
- The Wolves driven off
Illustrations: Part Two
- Crusoe married
- Crusoe's farm at Bedford
- The French Ship on Fire
- The Rescued Crew on the deck of Crusoe's Ship
- Demasted Vessel at Sea
- Friday and his Father
- Crusoe welcomed by the Spaniard
- The Pirate firing the Hut
- The Vagrants in the Woods
- Spaniard protecting the Savage
- The Pirates leaving the Island
- Spanish Village
- Seizure of Sleeping Savages
- The Englishmen bind the Savage to a Tree
- A Battle
- Will Atkins' Tent
- Crusoe and the Spaniard conversing together
- Crusoe's Farewell Advice
- Group of Huts under the Hill
- Crusoe conversing with the Priest
- Crusoe and the Priest
- Will Atkins and his Wife
- Will Atkins, Crusoe, and the Priest
- Priest and Negro Woman
- Crusoe gives Atkins a Bible
- Farewell to the Island
- Fleet of Canoes
- The Burial of Friday
- The Cape of Good Hope
- Crusoe arrives at Madagascar
- Burning the Village
- The Mutiny
- Sailing through the Strait of Malacca
- Chased by Boats
- Stopping Leaks in the Ship
- Tarring the Blacks
- Crusoe entering a Chinese Port
- Crusoe introduced to a Chinese Merchant
- The City of Nankin
- Crusoe visits Pekin
- The Great Wall of China
- A Fight with the Tartars
- Flight of the Tartars
- Crusoe and the Tartar Idol
- Crusoe and Party in Tartary
- Crusoe crosses the Desert in Tartary
- Crusoe arrives in Tobolsk
- Crusoe and the Russian Exile
- Ship leaving Archangel
- Uncaptioned tailpiece: Ship in stormy Seas
- The illustrated cover: Abstract Designs
Illustrators and engravers discussed elsewhere on the Victorian Web:
Related material:
- The Ornate Borders of "Robinson Crusoe" (1863-64)
- The revival of book illumination and its imitation in print
- Victorian Bibliomania: The Illuminated Book in Nineteenth-Century Britain
The Recurring Motifs in the Illustrations
General pictorial themes and backdrops in the 104 illustrations include the following:
- (23) 1. the island castaway experience. Pages 1, 41, 45, 49, 57, 60, 65, 68, 73, 81, 84, 89, 96, 100, 108, 113, 116, 121, 129, 132, 164, 168, and 237
- (2) 2. family relationships. 5, 205
- (29) 3. the sea, shipping, shipwrecks, sailors. 9, 12, 17, 20, 28, 33, 36, 52, 93, 124, 173, 176, 180, 185, 188, 212, 220, 244, 308, 309, 313, 329, 333, 336, 341, 344, 349, 393, and xiv
- (3) 4. slavery (including Crusoe's). 13, 17, 241
- (1) 5. commerce. 25
- (7) 6. agriculture & settlement. 76, 105, 209, 248, 264, 269, 273
- (15) 7. the natives & Friday. 137, 140, 145, 149, 152, 156, 161, 196, 224, 253, 257, 260, 344, 365, 369
- (4) 8. armed men on horseback, military action. 192, 260, 321, 367
- (2) 9. wild animals. 196, 200
- (19) 10. foreigners and foreign locales. 229, 276, 316, 317, 321, 333, 341, 344, 349, 352, 353, 360, 364, 365, 369, 377, 380, 385, 388
- (6) 11. religion. 280, 284, 288, 293, 296, 301
- (35) 12. cameos or closeups of Crusoe himself. 13 (as slave), 33 (as salvager), 37 (as builder), 41 (as diarist), 49 (as hunter-gatherer), 57 (as explorer), 61 (as patient), 65 (as basket-weaver), 69 (in his bower), 73 (as goat-herd), 77 (as sower), 81 (as teacher), 85 (as boat-builder), 89 (as tailor), 93 (as sailor), 96 (with dog at dinner), 101 (as explorer), 105 (milking goats), 117 (in cave with goat), 121 (in his fort), 129 (in his boat), 132 (has rescued Friday), 141 (out shooting with Friday), 145 (bible-reading with Friday), 149 (in his fort with Friday), 152 (felling wood with Friday), 157 (attacking cannibals with Friday), 161 (with the Spaniard), 205 (with wife), 229 (with Spaniard), destroying the idol, 281 (with priest), 293 (with Atkins and priest), 301, 388 (with Russian exile)
- (55) 13. any scene involving Crusoe. 1, 5, 13, 17, 21, 23, 33, 37, 41, 45, 49, 57, 61, 65, 69, 73, 77, 81, 85, 89, 93, 96, 101, 105, 108, 113, 117, 121, 125, 132, 141, 145, 149, 152, 157, 165, 169, 193, 205, 229, 265, 269, 273, 276, 281, 284, 293, 301, 308, 352, 365, 377, 380, 385, and 388.
Although women of any race are rarely depicted in the 104 illustrations (six in total), Crusoe, as one would expect, dominates the program: he occurs in fifty-five of the illustrations, and is prominent (in cameos and closeups) in thirty-five. He appears in some twenty-three capacities: as a son, a slave, a businessman and planter, a salvager, a builder, a diarist, a hunter-gatherer, an explorer, a patient, a basket-weaver, a goat-herd, a sower, a teacher, a boat-builder, a sailor, a tailor, a goat-milker, a woodsman, a soldier, a military strategist, a diplomat, a religionist, as a destroyer of idols, and as Friday's companion. Necessarily, given his age and the story's shift in setting and action in part two, Crusoe is less present in The Farther Adventures.
Related Material
Bibliography
Blewett, David. "Robinson Crusoe, Friday, and the Noble Savage: The Illustration of the Rescue of Friday Scene in the Eighteenth Century." Man and Nature, Vol. 5 (1986), 29–49. https://www.erudit.org/en/journals/man/1986-v5-man0238/1011850ar.pdf
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, with introductory verses by Bernard Barton, and illustrated with numerous engravings from drawings by George Cruikshank expressly designed for this edition. 2 vols. London: Printed at the Shakespeare Press, by W. Nichol, for John Major, Fleet Street, 1831.
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Illustrated by Edward H. Wehnert. London: Bell and Daldy, 1862.
De Foe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.
De Foe, Daniel. Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, including A Memoir of the Author, and an Essay on his Writings. Illustrated by Phiz. London & New York: Routledge, Warne, and Routledge, 1864.
De Foe, Daniel. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Written by Himself. Illustrated by Gilbert, Cruikshank, and Brown. London: Darton and Hodge [1867?].
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. (1831). Major's Edition. London: Chatto & Windus, 1890.
"The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Extra-Extra-Illustrated (T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1820): Scope and Contents." PACSCL Finding Aids. http://dla.library.upenn.edu/cocoon/dla/pacscl/ead.html?id=PACSCL_RBCat_RBCat&sort=date_added_sort%20asc&fq=name_facet%3A%22Stothard%2C%20Thomas%2C%201755-1834%22&
McLean, Ruari. George Cruikshank: His Life and Work as a Book Illustrator. English Masters of Black-and-White. London: Art and Technics, 1948.
Patten, Robert L. "Phase 2: 'The Finest Things, Next to Rembrandt's,' 1720–1835." Chapter 20, "Thumbnail Designs." George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art, vol. 1: 1792-1835. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers U. P., 1992; London: The Lutterworth Press, 1992. Pp. 325-339.
Last modified 9 April 2018