"The Gibbet on the Marshes" [uncaptioned] — initial illustration for "Great Expectations" by John McLenan (24 November 1860)

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The Gibbet on the Marshes [uncaptioned]

John McLenan

24 November 1860

9.5 cm high by 6 cm wide (3 ¾ by 2 ¼ inches)

Dickens's Great Expectations,

Harper's Weekly 4 (24 November 1860): 740.

Not reproduced in the T. B. Peterson single-volume edition of 1861

The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the prospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon by which the sailors steered,—like an unhooped cask upon a pole,—an ugly thing when you were near it; the other, a gibbet, with some chains hanging to it which had once held a pirate. [741]

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: Setting the Dismal Scene at the Opening and Closing of Ch. 1

Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip. [Chapter I, 740]

Commentary: An Atmosphere suitable to "that universal struggle"

Since the narrator does not appear within the frame, the reader is left to imagine him: clearly an educated adult rather than a labouring-boy. The reader sees what the mature Pip in his mind's eye sees: the low-lying marsh country, and a chilling symbol of human occupation: a ready means of despatching law-breakers. McLenan provides an atmospheric thumbnail sketch as a headnote vignette to introduce the reader to one of the Bildungsroman's principal settings up to the close of "The First Stage of Pip's Expectations" (concluding in Chapter 19). Implicit in the wood-engraving is the sociological conception that poverty and harsh environment are conducive to criminality. Thus, the illustration reflects the newly-hatched Darwinian principle of "Survival of the Fittest" which the scientist had recently articulated in Origin of Species (1859). We return to this ominous physical setting much later in the novel, when Orlick traps Pip at the sluice-house on the marches in Title-page vignette: Pip approaching the lime-kiln in ch. 53.

Related Material, Including Penal Transportation and Film Adaptations

Other Artists’ Illustrations for Dickens's Great Expectations

Edward Ardizzone (2 plates selected)
H. M. Brock (8 lithographs)
J. Clayton Clarke ("Kyd") (2 lithographs from watercolours)
Felix O. C. Darley (4 photogravure plates)
Sol Eytinge, Jr. (8 wood engravings)
Marcus Stone (8 wood engravings)
Frederic W. Pailthorpe (21 steel engravings)
F. A. Fraser in the Household Edition (29 wood engravings)
Harry Furniss (28 plates)
Charles Green (10 lithographs)

Bibliography

Allingham, Philip V. "The Illustrations for Great Expectations in Harper's Weekly (1860-61) and in the Illustrated Library Edition (1862) — 'Reading by the Light of Illustration'." Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 40 (2009): 113-169.

Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Il. John McLenan. Vol. IV.

______. ("Boz."). Great Expectations. With thirty-four illustrations from original designs by John McLenan. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson (by agreement with Harper & Bros., New York), 1861.

______. Great Expectations. Volume 6 of the Household Edition. Illustrated by F. A. Fraser. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876.

Paroissien, David. The Companion to "Great Expectations." Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2000.

Created 7 July 2005

Last updated 9 November 2021