"Uncaptioned: Marion's dream of Walter's mourning at Laura's tomb." — John McLenan's headnote vignette for the fifteenth weekly number of Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White" in <span class="book">Harper's Weekly</span> (17 March 1860)

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Marion's dream of Walter's mourning at Laura's tomb.

John McLenan

17 March 1860

11.3 cm high by 5.6 cm wide (4 &frac;38 by 2 ⅛ inches), framed, p. 133; p. 106 in the 1861 volume edition.

Headnote vignette for the seventeenth part of Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel (1860).

After Fosco has delivered the good news that Glyde has relented over Laura's signing the parchment, Marian is so exhausted that she nods off on a sofa in drawing-room. In her waking dream she focuses on the tribulations of Walter Hartright in the jungles of Honduras, shipwrecked on the shore of a tropical island, and then grieving at marble tomb. Every time that she exhorts him to save himself, he promises to return.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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Marion's dream of Walter's mourning at Laura's tomb. — staff artist John McLenan's uncaptioned headnote vignette for the seventeenth serial number of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, published on 17 March 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vol. IV, "The Second Epoch," "The Narrative of Marian Halcombe, Taken from Her Diary," p. 115 in the 1861 volume and p. 133 the serial number. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Passage: Exhausted, Marion sleeps, dreaming of the Dangers that Walter faces

I saw him for the third time in a wrecked ship, stranded on a wild, sandy shore. The overloaded boats were making away from him for the land, and he alone was left to sink with the ship. I cried to him to hail the hindmost boat, and to make a last effort for his life. The quiet face looked at me in return, and the unmoved voice gave me back the changeless reply. “Another step on the journey. Wait and look. The Sea which drowns the rest will spare me.”

I saw him for the last time. He was kneeling by a tomb of white marble, and the shadow of a veiled woman rose out of the grave beneath and waited by his side. The unearthly quiet of his face had changed to an unearthly sorrow. But the terrible certainty of his words remained the same. “Darker and darker,” he said; “farther and farther yet. Death takes the good, the beautiful, and the young — and spares me. The Pestilence that wastes, the Arrow that strikes, the Sea that drowns, the Grave that closes over Love and Hope, are steps of my journey, and take me nearer and nearer to the End.”

My heart sank under a dread beyond words, under a grief beyond tears. The darkness closed round the pilgrim at the marble tomb — closed round the veiled woman from the grave — closed round the dreamer who looked on them. I saw and heard no more.

I was aroused by a hand laid on my shoulder. It was Laura’s. ["The Second Epoch. The Story continued by Marian Halcombe," Blackwater Park, Hampshire. July 4th," p. 133; p. 115 in the 1861 volume.]

Commentary: Sir Percival Glyde suddenly relents; Marion dreams Walter escapes death

Relieved that Glyde has relented, Marian gives herself up to a catnap. The editors of the Broadview edition note that this particularly vivid series of feverish dreams "could be an early symptom of typhus fever, which is spread by the fleas of rats, mice, and other small mammals. When touring the abandoned part of Blackwater Park with Mrs. Michelson a week earlier, Marian notes the presence of rats" (Note 1, 293). The dream of the mourner at the tomb combines such realistic elements as Anne Catherick's cleaning Mrs. Fairlie's grave, the figure in white reported at Mrs. Fairlie's grave, and the recent walks through the plantation (which apparently forms the backdrop in McLenan's vignette) with her apprehensions about Hartright and Laura. Here, at the very curtain of the seventeenth instalment Marian suddenly awakes to a hand on her shoulder. Laura gives her the startling news that the stranger following them was Anne Catherick, and that she has just spoken with The Woman in White.

Related Material

McLenan's full-size plate for the seventeenth number "Are you going back to the house, Miss Halcombe?" for the 17 March 1860 number
Fred Walker's poster: The Woman in White for the Olympic's October 1871 adaptation
The Sensation Novel, 1860-1880 — "preaching to the nerves instead of the judgment."

Bibliography

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. New York: Harper & Bros., 1861 (first printing, 15 August 1860; reissued in single-column format in 1902, 548 pages).

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Illustrated by John McLenan. Vols. III-IV (16 November 1859 through 8 September 1860).

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White. Ed. Maria K. Bachman and Don Richard Cox. Illustrated by Sir John Gilbert and F. A. Fraser. Toronto: Broadview, 2006.

Peters, Catherine. "Chapter Twelve: The Woman in White (1859-1860)." The King of the Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. London: Minerva Press, 1992. Pp. 205-25.

Vann, J. Don. "The Woman in White in All the Year Round, 26 November 1859 — 25 August 1860." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. Pp. 44-46.

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Created 11 July 2024