"They all faced about upon the dog" — illustration for Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (1891)

They all faced about upon the dog

Wal Paget (1863-1935)

nearly full-page lithograph

17.8 cm high by 12.3 cm wide, vignetted.

1891

Robinson Crusoe, embedded on page 52.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: The goats defend themselves against the dog

Jan. 2 — Accordingly, the next day I went out with my dog, and set him upon the goats, but I was mistaken, for they all faced about upon the dog, and he knew his danger too well, for he would not come near them. [Chapter V, "Builds a House — A Journal," page 54]

Commentary: The Island's Goats face down Robinson Crusoe's Dog

Compared to previous Crusoe illustrators, Paget is much consistent and realistic in his approach to Crusoe's dog. Paget again features the dog of English Field Spaniel breed as Crusoe's companion, as if to underscore his master's sense of isolation. In Crusoe and Poll the Parrot in dialogue Cruikshank arranges the scene in the cave so that the dog, too, appears to be receiving instruction; he pays rapt attention, but of course cannot participate in the speech lesson. Although an insignificant presence in the 1790 Stothard illustrations, the dog is much in evidence in other illustrators' depictions of Crusoe's salvage operations, as, for example, Robinson Crusoe on the Raft (1818). The dog is also Crusoe's domestic companion, as in the cave scenes such as Robinson Crusoe reading the Bible (1818), and Crusoe Writing his Journal (1863-64). Moreover, artists usually show him present when his master discovers the mysterious footprint in the sand, an iconic moment that he shares without any comprehension as to what all the fuss is about. The parrot and the dog therefore serve as foils to Friday, whose arrival as a satisfactory companion they foreshadow. After the arrival of Friday, the dog, so long a device for pictorial continuity, disappears.

Again, the illustration imposes itself on the text as the last three have, asserting its hegemony by compelling the text to retreat into three uneven columns of print opposite the goats furthest away (top), the main herd (centre), and the barking dog (bottom right, just above Paget's signature). The effect of shrinking the width of the text columns is to diminish their importance (after all, they concern neither the dog nor the goats) and to focus on the adversarial relationship between the goats, who constitute two-thirds of the large-scale vignette, and Crusoe's unnamed dog of unspecified breed. This asymetrical relationship is not entirely new to nineteenth-century publishing practice as Dickens's illustrators, for example, had employed it in dropping wood-engravings in the texts of the Christmas Books that followed the more conventionally laid out A Christmas Carol of 1843. However, Paget here uses the strategy of the vignette dropped into the text to draw readers' attentions to the dog as Crusoe's principal companion and agent (until the arrival of Friday) and to Crusoe's principal source of food. This and the next illustration are highly unusual in this series because no human being occurs within the visual text, and Crusoe himself is present only by implication, for he is a mere observer in both instances. Paget accomplishes the not inconsiderable tasks of presenting the dog in yet another vein (assertiveness as opposed to the subservience of the previous illustration, I wanted nothing that he could fetch me) and of presenting the goats as individuals, each unique in pose, size, and shading, and disposed vertically as opposed to horizontally, as if to imply their ability to climb away from danger.

Related Material

Related Scenes of Crusoe and his dog from Stothart (1790), the 1818 Children's Book, Cruikshank (1831), Gilbert (1860s), and Cassell (1863-64)

Above: Cruikshank's woodblock engraving of Crusoe in protective headgear stalking the island's goats: Crusoe hunting goats (1831). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Left: Thomas Stothard's elegant realisation of Crusoe and his dog, Robinson Crusoe discovers the print of a man's foot (1862 (1790, copper-plate engraving). Centre: During the rainy seasons, Crusoe's constant companion in his cave is the dog: Robinson Crusoe writing in his Journal (1863-64). Right: The 1818 children's book depicts Crusoe reading the Bible in the presence of his attentive dog, Robinson Crusoe reading the Bible (wood-engraving), which features the dog as a faithful but uncomprehending companion. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Left: The 1818 children's book's depiction of Crusoe's stunning discovery, Robinson Crusoe's terror at the print of the human foot. Centre: Sir John Gilbert's frontispiece introduces readers to Crusoe's dog in the cave: Crusoe & his Parrot in Chapter X, "Tames Goats" (1860s). Right: Gilbert's Crusoe is not startled so much as shocked and surprised as he puts his hand to his brow in this full-page composite woodblock engraving, Robinson Crusoe discovers a Footprint (1860s): Chapter XI, "Finds the print of a man's foot on the sand." [Click on the images to enlarge them.]

Above:George Cruikshank'scomic wood-engraving ofCrusoe's startled reaction as he discovers the footprint on the beach, Friday's Footprint: Crusoe discovers a human footprint on the beach. [Click onthe image to enlarge it.]

Reference

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner. As Related by Himself. With upwards of One Hundred and Twenty Original Illustrations by Walter Paget. London, Paris, and Melbourne: Cassell, 1891.

Last modified 26 April 2018