‘Lady Ongar and Florence’, by Mary Ellen Edwards, for Trollope’s ‘The Claverings’

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Lady Ongar and Florence

Mary Ellen Edwards

1867

Wood engraving by Horace Harral

6 x 4 inches

Illustration for Anthony Trollope’sThe Claverings, The Cornhill Magazine, May 1867, facing p.513.

The final illustration in which Julia and Florence achieve a rapprochement. The image represents the author’s measured words (p.530), and Edwards stresses the idea that Julia no longer regards herself as a rival in love; rather, she shows her as self-contained, taller than Florence, and holding her hands as if she were a mother-figure. [continued below]

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As N. John Hall notes, Julia has featured ‘pre-eminently’ throughout (p.108), and her final embracing of the younger women is presented both touchingly and with psychological insight. In this design, as elsewhere in the series, she achieves the dignified intensity of the best of Millais’s illustrations.

Bibliography

The Cornhill Magazine. London: Smith, Elder, 1867.

Hall, N. John.Trollope and His Illustrators.. New York: St Martins Press, 1980.

Last modified 13 September 2014