"Robinson Crusoe's terror at the print of the human foot" [Plate 6] — Illustrated Edition of "Robinson Crusoe" (1818)

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Robinson Crusoe's terror at the print of the human foot

1818

Hand-tinted copper-engraving

8.2 cm high by 5.4 cm wide, framed

Pages: ii, 195 p., [12] leaves of illustrations

Source: Illustration for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, facing page 106 [Plate 6].

Illustrations of children’s editions

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: Crusoe Discovers A Foot-print in the Sand

It happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man’s naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand. I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition. I listened, I looked round me, but I could hear nothing, nor see anything; I went up to a rising ground to look farther; I went up the shore and down the shore, but it was all one; I could see no other impression but that one. I went to it again to see if there were any more, and to observe if it might not be my fancy; but there was no room for that, for there was exactly the print of a foot—toes, heel, and every part of a foot. How it came thither I knew not, nor could I in the least imagine; but after innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out of myself, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the ground I went on, but terrified to the last degree, looking behind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying every stump at a distance to be a man. Nor is it possible to describe how many various shapes my affrighted imagination represented things to me in, how many wild ideas were found every moment in my fancy, and what strange, unaccountable whimsies came into my thoughts by the way.[Chapter XI, "Finds Print of Man's Foot on the Sand"]

Facing Page of Text

. . . on the upper lip. He wore whiskers in the Mahometan style, such as he had seen worn by the Turks at Sallee.

But though his appearance was so calculated to excite terror in others, it did not ensure him against a severe fright which he received in one of his peregrinations.

One day whilst he was proceeding towards the spot where he had left his boat, he distinctly observed on the sand, the print of a naked human foot. He stopped short as though he had been struck with a thunderbolt. He listened and looked cautiously around him; but he could neither see nor hear any thing. He ascended a little hillock and again descended to the shore, but he could perceive no object that was new to him and no trace of a human being except that one.

He turned back, hoping that his alarm had been occasioned merely by some working of his fancy; but he beheld the. . . . [page 106]

Commentary

Robinson Crusoe, bearded and in his "island dress," discovers the footprint on the shore that indicates that he is no longer alone on the island, a moment which such noted illustrators of the novel as Thomas Stothard and George Cruikshank have also realised. Whereas Crusoe in the other illustrators' treatments of this subject is astonisat, this figure expresses mere curiosity.

Now Robinson Crusoe appears bearded and much older in his "island dress" and carrying a goatskin parasol to guard his fair European complexion against the tropic sun. The previous bible-reading scene, then, prepares the reader for this celebrated moment when Providence brings him the companionship he has so desired over a dozen years on the island. Crusoe discovers a human footprint in the sand, indicating that he is no longer the sole resident of the island at the mouth of the Orinoco River, off the Venezuelan coast, south of Trinidad. In his patient resolution and his maintaining a positive outlook in the face of isolation and adversity, the protagonist serves as a model of fortitude for British children in the nineteenth century, a model colonist and builder of empire.

Parallel Scenes by Stothard (1790), Cruikshank (1831), and Cassell's (1863-64)

Left: Stothard's 1790 realisation of this highly charged moment, Robinson Crusoe discovers the print of a man's foot (Chapter XI, "Finds the print of a man's foot on the sand." (copper-engraving). Centre: Cruikshank's more dramatic interpretation of the same scene, Friday's Footprint — Crusoe discovers a human footprint on the beach (wood-engraving). Right: A later interpretation detailing Crusoe's goatskin costume, Crusoe sees a Foot-print in the Sand (1863). [Click on images to enlarge them.]

Reference

Defoe, Daniel. The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. A new and improved edition, interspersed with reflections, religious and moral. Adorned with engravings. London: J. Harris, 1818.

Last modified 15 February 2018