"Uncaptioned: A derelict boat in Blackwater lake" — Headnote vignette by John McLenan for Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White" in <span class="book">Harper's Weekly</span> (11 February 1860)

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A derelict boat in Blackwater lake.

John McLenan

11 February 1860

10.2 cm high by 5.4 cm wide (4 by 2 ⅛ inches), framed, p. 85.

Tenth headnote vignette for Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel (1860).

As Marian begins her exploration of the grounds of the Blackwater Park estate the morning after her arrival, on 28 July 1850 she emerges from a close plantation of firs to discover the lake below her. Returning by her former path to the heath nearer the house, she encounters a wooden shed or boat-house. As she sits to catch her breath, she hears a sobbing breath underneath her. Under her rude seat she discovers a feeble black and white spaniel, who is the subject of this instalment’s chief illustration for incidents on 28 July.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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A derelict boat in Blackwater lake. — staff artist John McLenan's uncaptioned headnote vignette for the twelfth serial number of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, published on 11 February 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. IV, "The Second Epoch": "The Narrative of Marian Halcombe, Taken from Her Diary," p. 85 in both the 1861 volume and the serial number. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Passage: Marian Explores the Blackwater Park Plantation

A pretty winding path, artificially made, led me on among the trees, and my north-country experience soon informed me that I was approaching sandy, heathy ground. After a walk of more than half a mile, I should think, among the firs, the path took a sharp turn — the trees abruptly ceased to appear on either side of me, and I found myself standing suddenly on the margin of a vast open space, and looking down at the Blackwater lake from which the house takes its name.

The ground, shelving away below me, was all sand, with a few little heathy hillocks to break the monotony of it in certain places. The lake itself had evidently once flowed to the spot on which I stood, and had been gradually wasted and dried up to less than a third of its former size. I saw its still, stagnant waters, a quarter of a mile away from me in the hollow, separated into pools and ponds by twining reeds and rushes, and little knolls of earth. On the farther bank from me the trees rose thickly again, and shut out the view, and cast their black shadows on the sluggish, shallow water. As I walked down to the lake, I saw that the ground on its farther side was damp and marshy, overgrown with rank grass and dismal willows. The water, which was clear enough on the open sandy side, where the sun shone, looked black and poisonous opposite to me, where it lay deeper under the shade of the spongy banks, and the rank overhanging thickets and tangled trees. The frogs were croaking, and the rats were slipping in and out of the shadowy water, like live shadows themselves, as I got nearer to the marshy side of the lake. I saw here, lying half in and half out of the water, the rotten wreck of an old overturned boat, with a sickly spot of sunlight glimmering through a gap in the trees on its dry surface, and a snake basking in the midst of the spot, fantastically coiled and treacherously still. Far and near the view suggested the same dreary impressions of solitude and decay, and the glorious brightness of the summer sky overhead seemed only to deepen and harden the gloom and barrenness of the wilderness on which it shone. I turned and retraced my steps to the high heathy ground, directing them a little aside from my former path towards a shabby old wooden shed, which stood on the outer skirt of the fir plantation, and which had hitherto been too unimportant to share my notice with the wide, wild prospect of the lake. ["The Story continued by Marian Halcombe, in Extracts from her Diary," "28th," p. 85; p. 85 in the 1861 volume edition]

Related Material

McLenan's full-size plate for the twelfth number "There, crouched up in the farthest corner," etc. for the 11 February 1860 number
Fred Walker's poster: The Woman in White for the Olympic's October 1871 adaptation

Bibliography

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. New York: Harper & Bros., 1861 (first printing, 15 August 1860; reissued in single-column format in 1902, 548 pages).

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Illustrated by John McLenan. Vols. III-IV (16 November 1859 through 8 September 1860).

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Ed. Maria K. Bachman and Don Richard Cox. Illustrated by Sir John Gilbert. London: Minerva, 2006.

Peters, Catherine. "Chapter Twelve: The Woman in White (1859-1860)." The King of the Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. London: Minerva Press, 1992. Pp. 205-225.

Vann, J. Don. "The Woman in White in All the Year Round, 26 November 1859 — 25 August 1860." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. Pp. 44-46.

The Woman
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Created 7 July 2024