"'Did you do it, or didn't you? Where was it?'" (Chapter XX) — ninth illustration by Robert Barnes for Thomas Hardy's "The Mayor of Casterbridge" (27 February 1886)

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"Did you do it, or didn't you? Where was it?"

Robert Barnes

27 February 1886 (Part Nine)

Composite Woodblock Engraving

17.7 cm high by 22.8 cm wide — 6 ¾ by 8 ¾ inches

Dickens's The Mayor of Casterbridge, Chapter XX, p. 241.

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

See below for passage illustrated and commentary.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: Elizabeth drops into Wessex Dialect

“Why do you lower yourself so confoundedly?” he said with suppressed passion. “Haven’t I told you o’t fifty times? Hey? Making yourself a drudge for a common workwoman of such a character as hers! Why, ye’ll disgrace me to the dust!”

Now these words were uttered loud enough to reach Nance inside the barn door, who fired up immediately at the slur upon her personal character. Coming to the door she cried regardless of consequences, “Come to that, Mr. Henchard, I can let ’ee know she’ve waited on worse!”

“Then she must have had more charity than sense,” said Henchard.

“O no, she hadn’t. ’Twere not for charity but for hire; and at a public-house in this town!”

“It is not true!” cried Henchard indignantly.

“Just ask her,” said Nance, folding her naked arms in such a manner that she could comfortably scratch her elbows.

Henchard glanced at Elizabeth-Jane, whose complexion, now pink and white from confinement, lost nearly all of the former colour. “What does this mean?” he said to her. “Anything or nothing?”

“It is true,” said Elizabeth-Jane. “But it was only —”

“Did you do it, or didn’t you? Where was it?” [Chapter XX, in serial 241; in volume, 157]

Commentary: Elizabeth-Jane's Conduct under Henchard's Microscope

In the February 27th illustration one must appreciate the careful detail with which Barnes has drawn Henchard's bluff serving-woman, Nance Mockridge. She stands as Hardy has described her, self-satisfied, judgmental, assertive, and arms crossed, while her stern employer, the man of substance and authoritative fashion, Henchard, respectably clad corn-factor and mayor, cross-examines Elizabeth regarding the rumour that his step-daughter once waited on tables at the King of Prussia Inn. The illustrator captures well the range of emotion evident in the three principals, and provides just enough of the stage set to make the dramatic scene utterly convincing as he elicits the viewer's sympathy for Elizabeth-Jane, who has just lost her mother and acutely feels the estrangement from her stepfather. The reader, thanks to Susan's note about Elizabeth's true parentage, readily divines the cause of Henchard's unkindness.

Bibliography

Allingham, Philip V. "A Consideration of Robert Barnes' Illustrations for Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge as Serialised in the London Graphic: 2 January-15 May, 1886." Victorian Periodicals Review 28, 1 (Spring 1995): pp. 27-39

Foster, Vanda. A Visual History of Costume: The Nineteenth Century.London: B. T. Batsford, 1984.

Hardy, Florence Emily. The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840-1891. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1928.

Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge. The Graphic 33 (2 January-15 May 1886).

Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge: A Story of a Man of Character. London: Osgood McIlvaine, 1895.

Jackson, Arlene. "The Mayor of Casterbridge: Realism and Metaphor."Illustration and the Novels of Thomas Hardy. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981. Pp. 96-104.

Created 17 June 2014

Last modified 19 March 2024