“He sent it to me in that state, with a curse, on my wedding morning” — illustration to Arthur Conan Doyle's “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder” by Sidney Paget

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“He sent it to me in that state, with a curse, on my wedding morning”

Sidney Paget

1893

Photographic reproduction of ink or watercolor on paper

Illustration for Arthur Conan Doyle's “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder,” p. 471.

Paget depicts Holmes finding a crucial fact that leads to solving the mystery.

See below for passage illustrated.

Formatting and text by George P. Landow

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the Internet Archive and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage illustrated

'He was more like a malignant and cunning ape than a human being,' said she, 'and he always was, ever since he was a young man.'

"'You knew him at that time?' said I.

"'Yes, I knew him well, in fact, he was an old suitor of mine. Thank heaven that I had the sense to turn away from him and to marry a better, if poorer, man. I was engaged to him, Mr. Holmes, when I heard a shocking story of how he had turned a cat loose in an aviary, and I was so horrified at his brutal cruelty that I would have nothing more to do with him.' She rummaged in a bureau, and presently she produced a photograph of a woman, shamefully defaced and mutilated with a knife. 'That is my own photograph,' she said. 'He sent it to me in that state, with his curse, upon my wedding morning.'

Bibliography

Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes. “Reproduced from the original publication in The Strand Magazine with the classic illustrations by Sidney Paget.” Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books, [after 1954]. Internet Archive version of a copy donated by Friends of the San Francisco Library. Web.

Last modified 13 December 2013