"Count Fosco predicts a change" — Eighteenth uncaptioned headnote vignette by John McLenan for Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White" — <span class="book">Harper's Weekly</span> (24 March 1860)

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Count Fosco predicts a change

John McLenan

24 March 1860

10.4 cm high by 5.3 cm wide (4 by 2 inches), vignetted.

Eighteenth uncaptioned headnote vignette for Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel (24 March 1860), 181; p. 121 in the 1861 volume.

The illustration prepares the American serial readers for Fosco's machinations with Sir Percival arriving at a successful outcome in terms of the husband's controlling his wife's estate, a devious plot involving The Woman in White.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Count Fosco predicts a change. — staff artist John McLenan's eighteenth headnote vignette (composite woodblock engraving) for Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, Instalment 18, published on 24 March 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, "The Second Epoch. Miss Halcombe's Narrative Continued, July 4th," p. 181; "Four o'clock," p. 121 in volume. [

Click on the image to enlarge it.]

The Closing Scene of VI foreshadowed in the Headnote Vignette of Count Fosco

We separated that evening later than usual. Towards midnight the summer silence was broken by the shuddering of a low, melancholy wind among the trees. We all felt the sudden chill in the atmosphere, but the Count was the first to notice the stealthy rising of the wind. He stopped while he was lighting my candle for me, and held up his hand warningly —

“Listen!” he said. “There will be a change to-morrow.” ["The Second Epoch. The Story continued by Marian Halcombe," Blackwater Park, Hampshire. VI. Four o'clock," p. 181; p. 121 in the 1861 volume.]

Introducing the Suave but Quirky Continental Villain, Count Fosco

McLenan first introduces readers of the American serial in the 18 February 1860 number of Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization with his demure, dutiful English wife, Madame Fosco. In fact, neither of them are what they appear to be, for the initial appearance of the Count as a respectably dressed English traveller in Count Fosco and the Dog is as spurious as that of his wife patiently engaged in embroidery.

In the next number (25 February 1860), McLenan provides images that adequately suggest the Count's voluble, flamboyant nature, if not his evil genius. There is no mistaking him for Collins's relatively insipid English villain, Sir Percival Glyde. And from the thirteenth weekly part onward, Fosco dominates the narrative-pictorial sequence, appearing a total of twenty times, culminating in the porcine Count's calmly threatening to shoot Hartright in the head in "I am thinking," said he, "whether I shall add to the disorder in this room by scattering your brains about the fire-place" (25 August 1861), the final illustration in the Harper's serialialisation.

Is this "change" that Fosco predicts connected to the secret about Glyde that Anne Catherick had failed to communicate in the boat-house, fearing they were overheard? One suspects that the male footprints that Marian noted near the boat-house were Foscos. Ostensibly, his remark at the very curtain of the eighteenth instalment has been occasioned by a gust of wind outside as the Foscos, Marian, and the Glydes are getting ready to quit the drawing-room late in the evening. Subsequently Madame Fosco announces that the "weather-glass" (barometer) in the front hall is still falling.

Related Material

McLenan's regular, full-scale illustration for the eighteenth weekly number in serial: "Not now," she said; "we are not alone — we are watched." for 24 March 1860
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., 1860.

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 and F. A. Fraser. Toronto: Broadview, 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. 205-25.

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.

Created 12 July 2024