"The impassive and highly respectable Mrs. Catherick." — John McLenan's uncaptioned headnote vignette for the thirty-second weekly number of Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White" in <span class="book">Harper's Weekly</span> (30 June 1860)

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The impassive and highly respectable Mrs. Catherick.

John McLenan

30 June 1860

10.5 cm high by 5.6 cm wide (4 by 2 ¼ inchess), vignetted.

Uncaptioned headnote vignette for the thirty-second weekly number of Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel (30 June 1860), 405 p. 202 in the 1861 volume.

[Click on the image to enlarge it.]

McLenan makes Anne's mother look both sour-faced and suspicious, as she would rightly be when the curious Walter Hartright comes inquiring about her relationship with Sir Percival Glyde. But Walter must persist, for this combative interlocutor knows Sir Percival's "Secret."

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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The impassive and highly respectable Mrs. Catherick. — staff artist John McLenan's headnote vignette (composite woodblock engraving) for the thirty-second weekly part of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel, published on 30 June 1860 in Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, "Epoch 3: Part II, "Hartright's Narrative, VII," p. 405; p. 202 in the 1861 volume.

Passage Illustrated: The Suspense Rises as Walter Finally Confronts Mrs. Catherick

The servant again retired to the parlour, again returned, and this time begged me, with a look of gloomy amazement, to walk in.

I entered a little room, with a flaring paper of the largest pattern on the walls. Chairs, tables, cheffonier, and sofa, all gleamed with the glutinous brightness of cheap upholstery. On the largest table, in the middle of the room, stood a smart Bible, placed exactly in the centre on a red and yellow woollen mat and at the side of the table nearest to the window, with a little knitting-basket on her lap, and a wheezing, blear-eyed old spaniel crouched at her feet, there sat an elderly woman, wearing a black net cap and a black silk gown, and having slate-coloured mittens on her hands. Her iron-grey hair hung in heavy bands on either side of her face — her dark eyes looked straight forward, with a hard, defiant, implacable stare. She had full square cheeks, a long, firm chin, and thick, sensual, colourless lips. Her figure was stout and sturdy, and her manner aggressively self-possessed. This was Mrs. Catherick.

“You have come to speak to me about my daughter,” she said, before I could utter a word on my side. “Be so good as to mention what you have to say.” [Part 32. Third Epoch. Part II. "Hartright's Narrative, VII," p. 405; p. 202 in the 1861 volume.

Commentary

Perhaps McLenan omitted the spaniel crouched at Mrs. Catherick's feet because owning a pet would not square with her dour, secretive demeanour. Conspicuous on the table behind her is the Bible, since it reveals her never-ending quest for respectability in her solidly middle-class house in the square at No. 13 at New Welmingham. The presence of the book merely realizes Collins's mentioning that "on the large table in the middle of the room stood a smart Bible, placed exactly in the centre, on a red and yellow woolen mat. . . ."

Related Material

McLenan's regular, full-scale illustration for the thirty-second weekly number in serial: Hartright and Laura for 30 June 1860
Fred Walker's poster: The Woman in White for the Olympic's October 1871 adaptation

Bibliography

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White: A Novel. New York: Harper & Bros., 1860.

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. 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. 44-46.

Created 29 July 2024