"Will Atkins' Tent" for Daniel Defoe's "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" (1863-64)

Will Atkins' Tent (page 265) — the volume's sixty-ninth 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). Part II, The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Chapter III, "The Fight with the Cannibals." Full-page, framed: 13.8 cm high x 22.2 cm wide.

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: Another Side of Will Atkins

As for Will Atkins, who was now become a very industrious, useful, and sober fellow, he had made himself such a tent of basket-work as I believe was never seen; it was one hundred and twenty paces round on the outside, as I measured by my steps; the walls were as close worked as a basket, in panels or squares of thirty-two in number, and very strong, standing about seven feet high; in the middle was another not above twenty-two paces round, but built stronger, being octagon in its form, and in the eight corners stood eight very strong posts; round the top of which he laid strong pieces, knit together with wooden pins, from which he raised a pyramid for a handsome roof of eight rafters, joined together very well, though he had no nails, and only a few iron spikes, which he made himself, too, out of the old iron that I had left there. Indeed, this fellow showed abundance of ingenuity in several things which he had no knowledge of: he made him a forge, with a pair of wooden bellows to blow the fire; he made himself charcoal for his work; and he formed out of the iron crows a middling good anvil to hammer upon: in this manner he made many things, but especially hooks, staples, and spikes, bolts and hinges. But to return to the house: after he had pitched the roof of his innermost tent, he worked it up between the rafters with basket-work, so firm, and thatched that over again so ingeniously with rice-straw, and over that a large leaf of a tree, which covered the top, that his house was as dry as if it had been tiled or slated. He owned, indeed, that the savages had made the basket-work for him. The outer circuit was covered as a lean-to all round this inner apartment, and long rafters lay from the thirty-two angles to the top posts of the inner house, being about twenty feet distant, so that there was a space like a walk within the outer wicker-wall, and without the inner, near twenty feet wide. [Chapter V, "A Great Victory," page 267]

Commentary

The scene occurs, as Crusoe explains, in the north-east quadrant of the island assigned to English colonists. Thomas Macquoid, like Cruikshank before him, has realised the basket-work walls, which serve to admit the breeze but, for the sake of security and privacy, have no windows. However, Macquoid is much more interested in the situation of the tidily-built "tent," namely the rich jungle foliage, with gigantic ferns and a massive plane tree framing the former mutineer's handiwork. We may infer that Atkins (centre) is discussing his plantation with the other three figures, who are (logically) the two other ex-mutineers and Crusoe himself. Crusoe the narrator sums up as a "great bee-hive" (259), implying that he is impressed with the industriousness of the plantation owner, Will Atkins. The artist, on the other hand, finds the lushness of the tropical vegetation far more interesting than the wickerwork house, framed on either side by trellises of grapes.

Related Material

Relevant illustrations from other 19th century editions, 1820-1891

Left: The Wehnert engraving of the same scene, Crusoe giving Bible to Will Atkins (1862). Centre: Cruikshank's realisation ofAtkins entertainingCrusoe, Crusoe presents a Bible to Will Atkins and his native wife (1831).Right: The original Stothard scene of Atkins' plantation, The Plantation of the Three Englishmen (1820). [Click onimages to enlarge them.]

Above: Wal Paget's half-page lithograph of the continuing conflict between the three former mutineers and the other colonists, "In this great bee-hive lived the three families.". [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Bibliography

Defoe, 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.

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Exciting Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, as Related by Himself. With 120 original illustrations by Walter Paget. London, Paris,and Melbourne: Cassell, 1891.

Last modified 29 March 2018