"We married them the same day" — illustration for Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (1891)

"We married them the same day" (See p. 322). Paget has employed the previous illustrations to establish the identities of the young Roman Catholic priest (left) and Crusoe in gold-braided coat. The marriage of the handyman and woman servant whom Crusoe has brought out from Europe has not been dealt with by previous illustrator, who have focussed on Crusoe's presenting a Bible to Will Atkins. Half of page 324, vignetted: 9.3 cm high by 12.8 cm wide. Running heads: "Converting the Savages" (page 323) and "A Gift for Will Atkins" (page 325).

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Passage Illustrated: A Colonial Wedding

His discourse was very prettily delivered, considering his youth, and was the more agreeable to me, because he told me positively the match was not for himself. I gave him all possible assurances that if I lived to come safe to England, I would deliver his letters, and do his business effectually; and that he might depend I should never forget the circumstances I had left him in. But still I was impatient to know who was the person to be married; upon which he told me it was my Jack-of-all-trades and his maid Susan. I was most agreeably surprised when he named the match; for, indeed, I thought it very suitable. The character of that man I have given already; and as for the maid, she was a very honest, modest, sober, and religious young woman: had a very good share of sense, was agreeable enough in her person, spoke very handsomely and to the purpose, always with decency and good manners, and was neither too backward to speak when requisite, nor impertinently forward when it was not her business; very handy and housewifely, and an excellent manager; fit, indeed, to have been governess to the whole island; and she knew very well how to behave in every respect.

The match being proposed in this manner, we married them the same day; and as I was father at the altar, and gave her away, so I gave her a portion; for I appointed her and her husband a handsome large space of ground for their plantation; and indeed this match, and the proposal the young gentleman made to give him a small property in the island, put me upon parcelling it out amongst them, that they might not quarrel afterwards about their situation.[Chapter VII, "Conversation betwixt Will Atkins and his Wife," page 322]

Commentary

Unlike the earlier Cassell illustrator, William Luson Thomas, Paget fails to contextualise the scene of Crusoe's presenting the Bible to Will Atkins as the women look on in the basketwork house of the planter. However, the present illustration sets the scene for the presentation, introducing the French priest (left), Crusoe (right), and the maid Susan, all of whom figure prominently in "I have brought you an assistant." This scene, focussing not on Crusoe or the Priest or on the Atkinses, dramatises Defoe's theme of creating a model European community in the wilderness through the Christianizing of the colonists and their servants. This is the vigorous, fashionably dressed Crusoe of Paget's island sequence rather than the elderly visitor seen in some of the 1864 illustrations.

Related Material

Relevant illustrations from other 19th editions, 1820-1864: The Bible Presentation

Left: The Wehnert engraving of the same scene, Crusoe giving Bible to Will Atkins (1862). Centre: The 1864 Cassell edition's realistic wood-engraving of the same scene, Crusoe gives Atkins a Bible (1864). Right: The original Stothard scene of Crusoe's return, Robinson Crusoe distributing tools of husbandry among the inhabitants (1820). [Click on images to enlarge them.]

Above: Cruikshank's realisation of Crusoe's visiting Will and his wife, Crusoe presents a Bible to Will Atkins and his native wife (1831). [Click on image to enlarge it.]

Reference

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Exciting Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, as Related by Himself. With 120 original illustrations by Walter Paget. London, Paris,and Melbourne: Cassell, 1891.

Last modified 5 April 2018