When on the hill . . .

W. Hennessey

1891

Wood engraving

19.7 cm high by 13.9 cm wide

Thomas Hardy's "To Please His Wife"

Black and White: A Weekly Illustrated Record and Review 1.21 (27 June 1891): 691

Full caption: "When on the hill behind the port, whence a view of the Channel could be obtained, she felt sure that a little speck on the horizon was the truck of the Joanna's mainmast." For some six years an anxious Joanna Joliffe has awaited the return of her husband and sons aboard the ill-fated ship they have named after her; she is depicted in the open ground above Havenpool, Wessex (Poole, Dorset), a superior vantage point which also symbolizes her social-climbing ambitions.

Scanned image, caption, and commentary by Philip V. Allingham