A Small Lodging at Louvain (Vol. XVII, facing page 129) horizontally-mounted, 10.4 cm high by 16.1 cm wide (4 ⅛ by 6 ¼ inches), vignetted; signed "MEE." in the lower-left corner. Mary Ellen Edwards' tenth full-page wood-engraving for Charles Lever's The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly in the Cornhill Magazine (February 1868), Chapters XXXI-XXXIV ("On the Road to Italy" through "A Small Lodging at Louvain.") in Vol. 17: pages 129 through 155 (26 pages including unpaged illustration in instalment). The wood-engraver responsible for this illustration was Joseph Swain (1820-1909), noted for his engravings of Sir John Tenniel's cartoons in Punch. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Illustrated: Ellen and Augustus Bramleigh at a Belgian Inn
She opened the letter after this and read it over leisurely.
“Well, and what do you say now, Nelly?” asked he.
“That it's Temple all over; he does not know why in this shipwreck every one is not helping to make a lifeboat for him. It seems such an obvious and natural thing to do that he regards the omission as scarcely credible.”
“Does he not see — does he not care for the ruin that has overtaken us?”
“Yes, he sees it, and is very sorry for it; but he opines, at the same time, that the smallest amount of the disaster should fall to his share. Here's something very different,” said she, taking a letter from her pocket. “This is from Julia. She writes from her little villa at Albano, and asks us to come and stay with them.” [Vol. XVIII, Chapter XXXIII, "A Small Lodging at Louvain," 228 in volume; in serial 144]
Commentary
Augustus and Nelly Bramleigh have taken up residence at a small inn in Louvain, Belgium, to save on expenses and keep out of the way while the lawyers for the family and Pracontal debate in the courts the question of who is the rightful heir to Castello and the considerable family fortune. Edwards captures well the siblings' contrasting characters through their poses: Nelly is optimistic, efficient, and engaged, whereas her oldest brother, Augustus, has clearly withdrawn into himself, dreading the possibility of reading his name in the press as the principal litigant.
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.]
Bibliography
Lever, Charles. The Bramleighs of Bishop’s Folly. The Cornhill Magazine 15 (June, 1867): pp. 640-664; 16 (July-December 1867): 1-666; 17 (January-June 1868): 1-663; 18 (July-October 1868): 1-403. Rpt. London: Chapman & Hall, 1872. Illustrated by M. E. Edwards; engraved by Joseph Swain.
Stevenson, Lionel. "Chapter XVI: Exile on the Adriatic, 1867-1872." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 277-296.
Created 7 September 2023