"The Wreck" for Daniel Defoe's "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" (1863-64)

The Wreck (p. 53) — the volume's sixteenth composite wood-block engraving for Defoe's The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Related by himself (London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin), 1863-64. Chapter 5, "Builds a House — The Journal."The illustrator presents a convincing panorama of the wrecked merchantman on the beach of a remote island off the South American coast, with the vessel broken amidships, and several pieces awaiting Crusoe's retrieval: planks, barrels, and a seaman's trunk. Full-page, framed: 14 cm high x 21.8 cm wide, including a frame of mixed land-based and sea-based elements, including a shell, crabs, an octopus, and vegetation. Running head: "An Earthquake on the Island" (p. 55). [Click on image to enlarge it.]

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.]

The Passage Illustrated

May 1. — In the morning, looking towards the sea side, the tide being low, I saw something lie on the shore bigger than ordinary, and it looked like a cask; when I came to it, I found a small barrel, and two or three pieces of the wreck of the ship, which were driven on shore by the late hurricane; and looking towards the wreck itself, I thought it seemed to lie higher out of the water than it used to do. I examined the barrel which was driven on shore, and soon found it was a barrel of gunpowder; but it had taken water, and the powder was caked as hard as a stone; however, I rolled it farther on shore for the present, and went on upon the sands, as near as I could to the wreck of the ship, to look for more. [Chapter V, "Builds a House — The Journal," page 56]

When I came down to the ship I found it strangely removed. The forecastle, which lay before buried in sand, was heaved up at least six feet, and the stern, which was broke in pieces and parted from the rest by the force of the sea, soon after I had left rummaging her, was tossed as it were up, and cast on one side; and the sand was thrown so high on that side next her stern, that whereas there was a great place of water before, so that I could not come within a quarter of a mile of the wreck without swimming I could now walk quite up to her when the tide was out. I was surprised with this at first, but soon concluded it must be done by the earthquake; and as by this violence the ship was more broke open than formerly, so many things came daily on shore, which the sea had loosened, and which the winds and water rolled by degrees to the land.

This wholly diverted my thoughts from the design of removing my habitation, and I busied myself mightily, that day especially, in searching whether I could make any way into the ship; but I found nothing was to be expected of that kind, for all the inside of the ship was choked up with sand. However, as I had learned not to despair of anything, I resolved to pull everything to pieces that I could of the ship, concluding that everything I could get from her would be of some use or other to me. [Chapter VI, "Ill and Conscience-Stricken," page 57]

Commentary

The illustration on the shore of the Caribbean island that will be Crusoe's home for decades emphasizes that the ship, broken beyond repair, will shortly break up and disappear without a trace. The seascape with a hint of the tropical shore, right rear, implies that the novel will be concerned with voyages to foreign ports and adventures on the high seas. Indeed, if one regards shipping, shipwrecks, the sea, and sailors as a construct behind the illustrations, about thirty per cent of the Cassell's illustrations are associated with such a motif. A further twenty percent of the narrative-pictorial series involves foreigners and foreign locales. Thus far in the narrative-pictorial sequence, the house artists have already provided two large-scale illustrations of shipwrecks:

Whereas earlier illustrators have focussed on Crusoe's struggling in the surf, the Cassell's artist has twice depicted a subject that underscores the autobiographical and non-fiction facade of the story — the wreck of the slave-ship that brought Crusoe to the Caribbean island. The dark sky above the derelict vessel recall the violent wrecks in the paintings of J. M. W. Turner, such as A Disaster at Sea (1835) and The Ship Wreck (1805). Although shipwrecks in the age before the accurate mapping of shoals and the widespread construction of lighthouses wereall too common, as the British in the nineteenth century engaged in such preventitive measures, the number of catastrophic incidents declined. However, as The Illustrated London News for the 1850s and 1860s shows, hurricane force winds could still force even fairly large merchant vessels on the rocks, as in The Wreck of the "Royal Charter" on the Coast of Anglesea, near Moelfre Five Miles from Point Lynas Lighthouse (5 November 1859). The Cassell's house-artists appear to have based both shipwreck compositions on actual shipwrecks depicted in the pages of The Illustrated London News, such as Wreck of an Indiaman." — From a Picture by Mr. Daniell (16 February 1859).

Related Material

Related Scenes from Stothart (1790), the 1818 Children's Book, Wehnert (1862), and Cruikshank's (1831)

Right: Stothard's elegant realisation of Crusoe clinging to the rock, Centre: Wehnert's more dynamic realisation of the same episode, Crusoe saved on the island (1862: wood-engraving, Chapter III, "Wrecked on a Desert Island"). Right: Colourful children's book realisation of the same scene, but utterly lacking in realistic perspective: Robinson Crusoe cast away on the rock (1818). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Above: George Cruikshank's sympathetic portrayal of Crusoe fighting for his life in the surf, Crusoe clinging to a rock on the beach. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Bibliography

De Foe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.

Last modified 10 March 2018