“At last the lock yielded, and the casket stood open before us.” (headpiece), or Holly Explores the Silver Casket (facing p. 25 in volume): composite woodblock illustration by Edward Killingworth Johnson, R. W. S., in H. Rider Haggard's "SHE:" A History of Adventure, 7 by 9 inches (12.8 cm high by 17.7 cm wide). The Graphic (9 October 1886): Volume XXXIV, p. 389, framed. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Passage Anticipated: The Casket — Twenty-five Years after the Opening Instalment
Maurice Greiffenhagen's first-volume illustration of the same scene: The Casket (1888).
“Now are you both ready?” I said, as people do when they are going to fire a mine. There was no answer, so I took the big key, rubbed some salad oil into the wards, and after one or two bad shots, for my hands were shaking, managed to fit it, and shoot the lock. Leo bent over and caught the massive lid in both his hands, and with an effort, for the hinges had rusted, forced it back. Its removal revealed another case covered with dust. This we extracted from the iron chest without any difficulty, and removed the accumulated filth of years from it with a clothes-brush.
It was, or appeared to be, of ebony, or some such close-grained black wood, and was bound in every direction with flat bands of iron. Its antiquity must have been extreme, for the dense heavy wood was in parts actually commencing to crumble from age.
“Now for it,” I said, inserting the second key.
Job and Leo bent forward in breathless silence. The key turned, and I flung back the lid, and uttered an exclamation, and no wonder, for inside the ebony case was a magnificent silver casket, about twelve inches square by eight high. It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition.
I drew it out and set it on the table, and then, in the midst of the most perfect silence, I inserted the strange-looking silver key, and pressed this way and that until at last the lock yielded, and the casket stood before us. It was filled to the brim with some brown shredded material, more like vegetable fibre than paper, the nature of which I have never been able to discover. This I carefully removed to the depth of some three inches, when I came to a letter enclosed in an ordinary modern-looking envelope, and addressed in the handwriting of my dead friend Vincey.
“To my son Leo, should he live to open this casket.”
I handed the letter to Leo, who glanced at the envelope, and then put it down upon the table, making a motion to me to go on emptying the casket. [Chapter III. "The Sherd of Amenartas," 390; in volume, pp. 24-25]
Commentary: Opening the Casket at Last!
The second chapter spans the period between John Vincey's death and the opening of the casket on Leo's twenty-fifth birthday, according to the instructions that his father left with Holly two decades earlier. Having been permitted to do so by the college administration once his adopted son, Leo, turned sixteen, Holly is now back in his Cambridge rooms. He has retained the servant, Job, whom Holly hired to help bring up the boy. Johnson puts the handsome, curly-haired Leo in an expensive silk dressing-gown, but does not endow him with the arresting good looks or golden locks which Greiffenhagen gives the blond-haired youth (now admitted to the Bar) studying the casket. Apolloesque Leo has been labelled "The Beauty" by the undergraduates, in contrast to their dubbing Holly "The Beast." Johnson has devoted considerable attention to the background, Holly's library, in order to faithfully realize the letterpress. In particular, the detailing above the mantlepiece suggests the pair's sporting activities abroad to which Holly has alluded in the second chapter.
Horace Holly (“Uncle Horace,” to Leo) insists upon waiting until after breakfast on Leo’s birthday to open the iron chest that they have just brought up from the bank in London. In both versions, the chest now stands open, and the owners are examining the contents of a much smaller and much more ancient ebony casket, crumbling as they attempt to open it. Then, to their surprise, they discover a much smaller silver chest, possibly from ancient Egypt, which Holly is looking at inside the ebony chest in the serial plate, but which Greiffenhagen does not depict.
It appeared to be of Egyptian workmanship, and the four legs were formed of Sphinxes, and the dome-shaped cover was also surmounted by a Sphinx. The casket was of course much tarnished and dinted with age, but otherwise in fairly sound condition.
This is the repository that Holly is examining the contents of with such intense interest in the Johnson composite woodblock engraving.
Scanned images and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use the images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose, as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them, and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Haggard, H. Rider. "SHE:" A History of Adventure. Illustrated by E. K. Johnson. The Graphic Magazine, Vols. XXXIV and XXXV. 2 October 1886 to 8 January 1887.
Haggard, H. Rider. SHE: A History of Adventure. Illustrated by E. K. Johnson. New York: Harper & Bros., 1887.
Haggard, H. Rider. She: A History of Adventure. Illustrated by Maurice Greiffenhagen and Charles H. M. Kerr. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1888.
"Johnson, Edward Killingworth." Haynes Fine Art. Web. Accessed 8 April 2025. https://www.haynesfineart.com/artists/edward-killingworth-johnson-uk
Created 30 April 2025