[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> John McLenan —> Charles Dickens —> Illustrations of A Tale of Two Cities —> Next]
"Like the soul of the furious woman whose body lay lifeless on the ground"
8.8 cm high by 8.7 cm wide (3 ½ inches square)
John McLenan
Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, Book III, Chapter XIV, "The Knitting Done."
The twenty-ninth installment of the novel appeared in Harper's Weekly (26 November 1859): 765; it had originally appeared in the UK on Saturday, 19 November in All the Year Round
See the T. B. Peterson volume, facing p. 207.
Lying hidden in her bosom, was a loaded pistol. Lying hidden at her waist, was a sharpened dagger. Thus accoutred, and walking with the confident tread of such a character, and with the supple freedom of a woman who had habitually walked in her girlhood, bare-foot and bare-legged, on the brown sea-sand, Madame Defarge took her way along the streets. . . .
"We are alone at the top of a high house in a solitary courtyard, we are not likely to be heard, and I pray for bodily strength to keep you here, while every minute you are here is worth a hundred thousand guineas to my darling," said Miss Pross.
Madame Defarge made at the door. Miss Pross, on the instinct of the moment, seized her round the waist in both her arms, and held her tight. It was in vain for Madame Defarge to struggle and to strike; Miss Pross, with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, clasped her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle that they had. The two hands of Madame Defarge buffeted and tore her face; but, Miss Pross, with her head down, held her round the waist, and clung to her with more than the hold of a drowning woman.
Soon, Madame Defarge's hands ceased to strike, and felt at her encircled waist. "It is under my arm," said Miss Pross, in smothered tones, "you shall not draw it. I am stronger than you, I bless Heaven for it. I hold you till one or other of us faints or dies!"
Madame Defarge's hands were at her bosom. Miss Pross looked up, saw what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash and a crash, and stood alone — blinded with smoke.
All this was in a second. As the smoke cleared, leaving an awful stillness, it passed out on the air, like the soul of the furious woman whose body lay lifeless on the ground.
In the first fright and horror of her situation, Miss Pross passed the body as far from it as she could, and ran down the stairs to call for fruitless help. Happily, she bethought herself of the consequences of what she did, in time to check herself and go back. It was dreadful to go in at the door again; but, she did go in, and even went near it, to get the bonnet and other things that she must wear. These she put on, out on the staircase, first shutting and locking the door and taking away the key. She then sat down on the stairs a few moments to breathe and to cry, and then got up and hurried away. [Book the Third — "The Track of a Storm," Chapter XIV, "The Knitting Done," 765]
Compare this woodblock illustration to the woodblock by Fred Barnard in the Household Edition that realizes the same confrontation: "You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer," said Miss Pross (1874). In Barnard's sequence, Miss Pross is not the wizened little woman of McLenan's narrative-pictorial sequence who is consistently an anxious mother hen to her "ladybird," Lucie Manette. Here, MacLenan has Miss Pross hold her right hand to her ear after the discharge of Thérèse Defarge's own pistol as the murder weapon in the Darnays' rooms to suggest her sudden deafness.
Scanned image by Philip V. Allingham; text by PVA and George P. Landow. [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.]
Allingham, Philip V. "Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859) Illustrated: A Critical Reassessment of Hablot Knight Browne's Accompanying Plates." Dickens Studies. 33 (2003): 109-158.
Davis, Paul. "Tale of Two Cities, A." Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998. Pp. 373-381.
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by John McLenan. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, 7 May through 3 December 1859.
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. Illustrated by John McLenan (33 illustrations). Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson, 1859.
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities: A story of the French Revolution. Project Gutenberg e-text by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska. Release Date: September 25, 2004 [EBook #98].
Dickens, Charles. A Tale of Two Cities. With illustrations by John McLenan and Rowland Wheelwright. Orinda, Cal.: Sea Wolf Press, 2021.
Guiliano, Edward, and Philip Collins. The Annotated Dickens. 2 vols. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986.
Created 25 November 2007
Last modified 30 November 2025