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Estella And Pip
Harry Furniss
1910
13.7 cm by 8.9 cm (5 ⅜ by 3 ½ inches), framed
"I saw no shadow of another parting from her." — p. 461.
Dickens's Great Expectations, Library Edition, facing p. 456.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
“But you said to me,” returned Estella, very earnestly, “‘God bless you, God forgive you!’ And if you could say that to me then, you will not hesitate to say that to me now,—now, when suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but — I hope — into a better shape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we are friends.”
<“We are friends,” said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from the bench.
“And will continue friends apart,” said Estella.
I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her. [Chapter LIX, 461]
Earlier in the ultimate day of the action of Great Expectations, Pip, just returned from the eastern offices of Clarriker and Company, takes his nephew, little Pip, to visit the old cemetary where the narrative began, among the tombstones of the Pirrip family. The narrator specifically mentions reliving the opening scene by setting the child of Biddy and Joe "on a certain tombstone" (Ch. LIX) in the churchyard. However, in Harry Furniss's final plate for the 1910 Charles Dickens Library Edition of the novel, "Estella and Pip: I saw no shadow of another parting from her. —Great Expect., p. 461," we are not in the garden of the former Satis House at all, but once again in the churchyard. Thus, perhaps to provide a neat complement to the opening scene, the illustrator has conflated the churchyard and the garden into a single setting. Since this twenty-seventh plate has been placed some five pages prior to the moment realized, the reader may not notice the incongrous elements: the willow tree (right), the tomb (left rear), and the tombstone (right). Symbolically, since the scene between Pip and Estella lays rest the vengeful spirit of Miss Havisham, that it has been re-set in the graveyard may be appropriate, even if in doing so Furniss has challenged the authority of Dickens's text as no previous illustrator before him had done.
Almost as incongruous as the properties in the background is the sour expression of the protagonist, hardly that of an ardent lover who has just completed his life-time quest. Estella (downstage centre, so to speak) dominates the ultimate scene, as proud, haughty, unbowed, and poised as ever as she gently lifts her voluminous skirt with her right hand while lightly resting her left on Pip's arm. Lightly sketched in the background are an area railing (right) and the leaded panes of a church window (left). Although Dickens specifies that the scene occurs on a misty December evening, Furniss suggests neither the twilight hour nor the season, for the scene is well lit and the willow in full leaf.
Left: John McLenan's serial conclusion of the Pip and Estella in the 3 August 1861 Harper's Weekly series: I saw the shadow of no parting from her, as they stand silently, ready to leave the ruined garden of Satis House together. Centre: Marcus Stone's 1862 Library Edition realisation of he reunion in the garden is charged with stars suggestive of fate: With Estella at last. Right: F. A. Fraser's Household Edition version is rather low-key for a romantic finalé: We sat down on a bench that was near (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.
Bolton, H. Philip. "Great Expectations." Dickens Dramatized. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987. Pp. 416-429.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
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.
_____. Great Expectations. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. XIII.
______. Great Expectations. Volume 6 of the Household Edition. Illustrated by F. A. Fraser. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876.
_____. Great Expectations. Illustrated by Frederic W. Pailthorpe with 17 hand-tinted water-colour lithographs. The Franklin Library. Franklin Center, Pennsylvania: 1979. Based on the Robson and Kerslake (London) edition, 1885.
______. 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 26 October 2021