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Let me sit listening as I would, with dread
John McLenan
12 cm by 11.5 cm wide (roughly 4 ½ inches square)
Dickens's Great Expectations, Harper's Weekly V (15 June 1861)
Plate 28 — facing p. 214 in the T. B. Peterson single-volume edition (1861)
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Scanned image, caption, and commentary by Philip V. Allingham.
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As the time wore on, an impression settled heavily upon me that Estella was married. Fearful of having it confirmed, though it was all but a conviction, I avoided the newspapers, and begged Herbert (to whom I had confided the circumstances of our last interview) never to speak of her to me. Why I hoarded up this last wretched little rag of the robe of hope that was rent and given to the winds, how do I know? Why did you who read this, commit that not dissimilar inconsistency of your own last year, last month, last week?
It was an unhappy life that I lived; and its one dominant anxiety, towering over all its other anxieties, like a high mountain above a range of mountains, never disappeared from my view. Still, no new cause for fear arose. Let me start from my bed as I would, with the terror fresh upon me that he was discovered; let me sit listening, as I would with dread, for Herbert’s returning step at night, lest it should be fleeter than ordinary, and winged with evil news, — for all that, and much more to like purpose, the round of things went on. Condemned to inaction and a state of constant restlessness and suspense, I rowed about in my boat, and waited, waited, waited, as I best could. [Chapter XLVII, p. 367]
McLenan effectively suggests Pip's apprehension as he hears a footfall on the stairs, and tries to determine whether it is Herbert's familiar step, albeit somewhat brisker, as if he is rapidly approaching with bad news — or perhaps another's. The dark plate, however, suggests by the coat on the chair and the hat on the table that Pip (fully dressed) is prepared to go out at a moment's notice, a condition that the text does not support. Pip's "dread" apparently concerns only the news that Estella has just married Drummle, but the picture seems to suggest a greater sense of apprehension, perhaps associated with the fate of Magwitch. The reader who was starting on the 15 June 1861 instalment likely expected that the source of Pip's apprehensiveness was something other than the news of Estella's marriage.
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. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Illustrated by John McLenan. Vols. IV and V (1860-61).
______. ("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.
______. A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The 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. "With 28 Original Plates by Harry Furniss." Volume 14 of the Charles Dickens Library Edition (18 vols). London: Educational Book Co., 1910.
Paroissien, David. The Companion to "Great Expectations." Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2000.
Created 20 November 2007 last updated 14 December 2021