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Crusoe discovers Goats on the island
Justyne, Leitch, Macquoid, Morgan, Pasquier, & Thomas
Engravers: Butterworth and Heath
1863-64
Wood-engraving
22 cm high by 13.9 cm wide.
Cassell's Robinson Crusoe, page 45.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
The 31st, in the morning, I went out into the island with my gun, to seek for some food, and discover the country; when I killed a she-goat, and her kid followed me home, which I afterwards killed also, because it would not feed. [Chapter V, "Builds a House — The Journal," p. 48]
The London publishers Cassell, Petter, and Galpin have taken full advantage of the realistic possibilities of the new style of composite wood-block engraving synonymous with the New Men of the Sixties, notably such innovative illustrators as Fred Walker and such skilled engravers as the Dalziels, Thomas and Edward. The ample program of plates for this volume reflect the ways the Sixties' turned from Cruikshankian caricature and Phizzian comicality towards a much greater of degree realism. The new emphasis upon realistic detail here appears in the full-page wood-engraving that details rifles, ropes, cut-poles, the ship's sail serving as a tent, and Crusoe's seventeenth-century merchant-sailor's garb.
The particular moment captured by the illustration again reinforces Crusoe's status for much of the first half of the story as a castaway on a tropical island. Here, however, Crusoe is surrounded by vegetable life as he scouts a herd of goats in the valley below; he and they are dwarfed by the jungle and its exotic plants, including palm trees, banana trees, cacti, and succulents, all of which dominate the composition and recall the opening illustration, Crusoe on the Island.
Left: Thomas Stothard's 1790 realisation of the solitary and somewhat nervous castaway's encountering the goat in the cave: Robinson Crusoe terrified at the dying goat (Chapter IV, "First Few Weeks on the Island," copper-engraving). Right: George Cruikshank's other scene involving the island's goats, Crusoe discovers a dying goat in a cave (1831). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Above: Cruikshank's version of Crusoe's goat-hunting, with far less emphasis on the vegetation surrounding the hunter: Crusoe hunting goats (1831). [Click on image to enlarge it.]
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner. As Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.
Last modified 10 March 2018