[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Cassell, Petter, and Galpin house artists —> Next]
Crusoe makes a little Tent with a Sail
Justyne, Leitch, Macquoid, Morgan, Pasquier, & Thomas
Engravers: Butterworth and Heath
1863-64
Wood-engraving
22 cm high by 14.2 cm wide.
Cassell's Robinson Crusoe, page 37.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Contented with this discovery, I came back to my raft, and fell to work to bring my cargo on shore, which took me up the rest of that day. What to do with myself at night I knew not, nor indeed where to rest, for I was afraid to lie down on the ground, not knowing but some wild beast might devour me, though, as I afterwards found, there was really no need for those fears.
However, as well as I could, I barricaded myself round with the chest and boards that I had brought on shore, and made a kind of hut for that night’s lodging. As for food, I yet saw not which way to supply myself, except that I had seen two or three creatures like hares run out of the wood where I shot the fowl. [Chapter IV, "First Weeks on the Island," page 36]
The London publishers Cassell, Petter, and Galpin have taken full advantage of the realistic possibilities of the new style of composite wood-block engraving synonymous with the New Men of the Sixties, notably such innovative illustrators as Fred Walker and such skilled engravers as the Dalziels, Thomas and Edward. The ample program of plates for this volume reflect the Sixties' veering away from Cruikshankian caricature and Phizzian comicality, and towards a much greater of degree realism, evident here in the full-page wood-engraving which details rifles, ropes, cut-poles, the ship's sail serving as a tent, and Crusoe's seventeenth-century merchant-sailor's garb.
The particular moment captured by the illustration reinforces Crusoe's status for much of the first half of the story as a castaway. Here as in other earlier plates the artists emphasize Crusoe's isolation by depicting him alone, struggling to survive in a series of twenty-five illustrations that begins with Crusoe loading his raft, and climaxes with Crusoe's rescuing a young aboriginal from the cannibals, Crusoe and Friday.
Left: Cruikshank's less atmospheric realisation of the same episode, Crusoe salvaging cargo from the shipwreck (1831: wood-engraving, Chapter III, "Wrecked on a Desert Island"). Right: Colourful realisation of the same scene, but somewhat lacking in realistic perspective: Robinson Crusoe on the Raft (1818). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Left: Stothard's elegant realisation of the same episode, Robinson Crusoe upon the raft (1782: copperplate-engraving, Chapter III, "Wrecked on a Desert Island"). Right: John Gilbert's vivacious young Crusoe rescues the ship's dog and one cat, Robinson Crusoe on his Raft (1860s). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner. As Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.
Last modified 9 March 2018