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Estella Tells Pip of Her Engagement to Mr. Drummle
Harry Furniss
1910
7.5 x 5 inches
Estella looked towards Miss Havisham, and considered for a moment with her work in her hands. Then she said, "Why not tell you the truth? I am going to be married to Mr. Drummle." I dropped my face into my hands. — p. 344
Dickens's Great Expectations, Library Edition, facing p. 344.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
“I thought and hoped you could not mean it. You, so young, untried, and beautiful, Estella! Surely it is not in Nature.”
“It is in my nature,” she returned. And then she added, with a stress upon the words, “It is in the nature formed within me. I make a great difference between you and all other people when I say so much. I can do no more.”
“Is it not true,” said I, “that Bentley Drummle is in town here, and pursuing you?”
“It is quite true,” she replied, referring to him with the indifference of utter contempt.
“That you encourage him, and ride out with him, and that he dines with you this very day?”
She seemed a little surprised that I should know it, but again replied, “Quite true.”
“You cannot love him, Estella!”
Her fingers stopped for the first time, as she retorted rather angrily, “What have I told you? Do you still think, in spite of it, that I do not mean what I say?”
“You would never marry him, Estella?”
She looked towards Miss Havisham, and considered for a moment with her work in her hands. Then she said, “Why not tell you the truth? I am going to be married to him.”
I dropped my face into my hands, but was able to control myself better than I could have expected, considering what agony it gave me to hear her say those words. When I raised my face again, there was such a ghastly look upon Miss Havisham’s, that it impressed me, even in my passionate hurry and grief. [Chapter XLIV, 344]
Furniss invests all his energies in describing Pup's grief at Estella's matter-of-fact revelation. She is calm and completely detatched emotionally from the pain she gives Pip — but only seemingly in the text. Miss Havisham in this realisation seems not to appreciate how badly Estella has treated Pip, but this is the moment for which she has raised Estella: she is to be above all rational and unromantic in her view of a suitable mate. Furniss engages the reader's emotions on Pip's behalf by rendering the other two characters as cold and aloof.
Left: In the first American serialisation, periodical illustrator John McLenan realizes the moment when Estella breaks the news of her engagement to a distraught Pip: "All done, all gone!" (1 June 1861). Centre: Sol Eytinge, Jr.'s double portrait of the heiress and her adopted daughter at this crucial point in the romantic plot: Miss Havisham and Estella (Diamond Edition, 1867). Right: F. A. Fraser's touching realisation of Miss Havisham's asking Pip's forgiveness: I entreated her to rise (1876).
Allingham, Philip V. "The Illustrations for Great Expectations in Harper's Weekly (1860-61) and in the Illustrated Library Edition (1862) — 'Reading by the Light of Illustration'." Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 40 (2009): 113-169.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Illustrated by John McLenan. [The First American Edition]. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vols. IV: 740 through V: 495 (24 November 1860-3 August 1861).
______. ("Boz."). Great Expectations. With thirty-four illustrations from original designs by John McLenan. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson (by agreement with Harper & Bros., New York), 1861.
______. Great Expectations. Illustrated by Marcus Stone. The Illustrated Library Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1862. Rpt. in The Nonesuch Dickens, Great Expectations and Hard Times. London: Nonesuch, 1937; Overlook and Worth Presses, 2005.
______. A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
______. Great Expectations. Volume 6 of the Household Edition. Illustrated by F. A. Fraser. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876.
______. Great Expectations. The Gadshill Edition. Illustrated by Charles Green. London: Chapman and Hall, 1898.
______. Great Expectations. The Grande Luxe Edition, ed. Richard Garnett. Illustrated by Clayton J. Clarke ('Kyd'). London: Merrill and Baker, 1900.
______. Great Expectations. "With 28 Original Plates by Harry Furniss." Volume 14 of the Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Co., 1910.
Paroissien, David. The Companion to "Great Expectations." Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2000.
Created 16 February 2007 last updated 20 October 2021