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Part of the Round Tower from the Moat
W. A. Delamotte
1843
Wood-engraving
9.7 cm high by 6.4 cm wide, vignetted
Thirty-fourth Delamotte illustration for W. Harrison Ainsworth's Windsor Castle. An Historical Romance, from the January 1843 number of Ainsworth's Magazine; Headpiece for Book the Second, "Herne the Hunter," Chapter IV, How Herne the Hunter shewed the Earl of Surrey the Fair Geraldine in a Vision," p. 103.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
On the third day after Surrey's imprisonment in the keep, he was removed to the Norman Tower. The chamber allotted him was square, tolerablylofty, and had two narrow-pointed windows on either side, looking on the one hand into the upper quadrangle, and on the other into the middle ward. At the same time permission was accorded him to take exercise on the battlements of the Round Tower, or within the dry and grassy moat at its foot.[Chapter IV. "How Herne the Hunter shewed the Earl of Surrey the Fair Geraldine in a Vision," pp. 102-103]
The highly specific architectural description and the expert draftsman's precise rendering of the external appearance of the tower in which Surrey has been incarcerated sets up a willing suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader. Here, just after midnight, will appear the elusive Herne, who offers to conjure up a vision of the Fair Geraldine and Surrey's erstwhile friend, the Duke of Richmond.
Above: George Cruikshank's mysterious dark-plate of the scene about to unfold in the tower drawn by Delamotte, The Vision of the Fair Geraldine (facing p. 105). [Click on image to enlarge it.]
Ainsworth, William Harrison. Windsor Castle. An Historical Romance. Illustrated by George Cruikshank and Tony Johannot. With designs on wood by W. Alfred Delamotte. London: Routledge, 1880. Based on the Henry Colburn edition of 1844.
Patten, Robert L. Chapter 30, "The 'Hoc' Goes Down." George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art, vol. 2: 1835-1878. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers U. P., 1991; London: The Lutterworth Press, 1996. Pp. 153-186.
Worth, George J. William Harrison Ainsworth. New York: Twayne, 1972.
Last modified 16 December 2017