Thomas Stothard's "Robinson Crusoe and Xury alarmed at the sight of a lion" for Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe"

[

Victorian Web Home —> Visual arts —> Illustration —> Illustrating Robinson Crusoe —> Thomas Stothard —> Next]

Robinson Crusoe and Xury alarmed at the sight of a lion

Artist: Thomas Stothard

Engraver: C. Heath

1782, 1790

Copper-engraving

11 cm high by 8.3 cm wide

Source: Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, facing page 24.

[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]

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.]

Stothard initially provided fifteen plates in Harrison's 1782 edition, then a more comprehensive set for John Stockdale's 1790 edition. Stothard added five plates to the second group of illustrations for this edition.

Passage Illustrated

Several times I was obliged to land for fresh water, after we had left this place; and once in particular, being early in morning, we came to an anchor under a little point of land, which was pretty high; and the tide beginning to flow, we lay still to go farther in. Xury, whose eyes were more about him than it seems mine were, calls softly to me, and tells me that we had best go farther off the shore; "For," says he, "look, yonder lies a dreadful monster on the side of that hillock, fast asleep." I looked where he pointed, and saw a dreadful monster indeed, for it was a terrible, great lion that lay on the side of the shore, under the shade of a piece of the hill that hung as it were a little over him. "Xury," says I, "you shall go on shore and kill him: Xury looked frightened , and said, "Me kill! he eat me at one mouth;" one mouthful he meant. However, I said no more to the boy, but bade him lie still; and took our biggest gun, which was almost musket-bore, and loaded itwith a good charge of powder, and with two slugs, and laid it down; then I loaded another gun with two bullets; and the third, for we had three pieces, I loaded with five smaller bullets. I took the best aim I could with the first piece, to have short him into the head.[Chapter III, "Slavery and Escape," p. 24]

Related Material

Illustrations of Robinson Crusoe

Bibliography

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Written by Himself. Illustrated by Thomas Stothard; engraving by C. Heath. London: Bliss, Sands, and Foster, 1820.

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, with introductory verses by Bernard Barton, and illustrated with numerous engravings from drawings by George Cruikshank expressly designed for this edition. 2 vols. London: Printed at the Shakespeare Press, by W. Nichol, for John Major, Fleet Street, 1831.

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Illustrated by Edward H. Wehnert. London: Bell and Daldy, 1862.

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. (1831). Major's Edition. London: Chatto & Windus, 1890.

Defoe, Daniel.The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, as Related by Himself. Illustrated by Wal Paget. London: Cassell, 1891.

"The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Extra-Extra-Illustrated (T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1820): Scope and Contents." PACSCL Finding Aids. http://dla.library.upenn.edu/cocoon/dla/pacscl/ead.html?id=PACSCL_RBCat_RBCat&sort=date_added_sort%20asc&fq=name_facet%3A%22Stothard%2C%20Thomas%2C%201755-1834%22&

Patten, Robert L. "Phase 2: "'The Finest Things, Next to Rembrandt's,' 1720–1835." Chapter 20, "Thumbnail Designs." George Cruikshank's Life, Times, and Art, vol. 1: 1792-1835. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers U. P., 1992; London: The Lutterworth Press, 1992. Pp. 325-339.

18 January 2018