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Initial-letter "T" for Ch. IV
Frederick Walker
Wood engraving by Joseph Swain
3.5 x 2 inches (8.6 cm high by 4.8 cm wide), vignetted.
W. M. Thackeray, Denis Duval, serialized in The Cornhill Magazine Vol. IX, No. 52 (April 1864), page 385.
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Scanned image by Simon Cooke and text by Philip V. Allingham
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That last night which he was to pass upon earth, Mr. de Saverne spent in a little tavern in Winchelsea frequented by fishing people, and known to Bidois, who, even during the war, was in the constant habit of coming to England upon errands in which Mons. Grandpapa was very much interested — perruquier, precentor, elder, as he was.
The Count de Saverne had had some talk with the fishermen during the voyage from Boulogne, and more conversation on took place on this last night, when the count took Bidois partly into his confidence; and, without mentioning the precise cause of his quarrel with M. de la Motte, said that it was inevitable; that the man was a villain who ought not to be allowed to pollute the earth; and that no criminal was ever more righteously executed than this chevalier would be on the morrow, when it was agreed the two were to meet. [Opening of Instalment Two, Chapter IV, p. 385]
Walker executed three of these initial-lettervignettes containing characters for three of the spring 1864 Cornhill instalments, with the exception of the initial (March) number. The engraver for the whole series was Walker's usual interpreter, Joseph Swain. This initial example, beginning the text for the second instalment and opposite the full-page illustration of Saverne's death in a duel, probably does not depict the older French emigré; rather, the dark and slightly menacing figure standing outside the public house at Winchelsea on the English side of the Channel is probably Saverne's adversary in duel, the Chevalier De la Motte, whose face Walker does not reveal in the full-page plate. The scene here is the public-house — the very Star Inn where Denis Duval dances and sings for the naval officers in the opening chapter. Walker offers a portrait of the story's villain, the Chevalier De la Motte, the sinister Frenchman who carried Madame Saverne away to England, in order to underscore his importance in the plot. According to Thackeray's notes, the Chevalier De la Motte, after the duel on the French shore, settles into the main commercial activity of Rye and Winchelsea: smuggling. The published fragment breaks off with Denis as a young adult escaping the smugglers and subsequently joining the Royal Navy. As a young British officer, he will see service during the American Revolution, engaging in a battle with the American naval hero John Paul Jones and defeating the squadron of Admiral Grasse. Thackeray apparently destined the treasonous Chevalier De la Motte for the noose.
The chapter-titles and instalments are as follows:
Harvey, Paul, ed. "Denis Duval." The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 4th edition. Oxford: Clarendon, 1967, rpt. 1983. P. 227.
Marks, John George. Life and Letters of Frederick Walker, A. R. A.. London and New York: Macmillan, 1896.
Phillips, Claude. Denis Duval's Valet by Walker. Frederick Walker and His Works. London: Seeley & Co., 1905 [re-issue of the 1894 edition], facing page 21.
Reid, Forrest. Illustrators of the Eighteen Sixties: An Illustrated Survey of the Work of 58 British Artists. New York: Dover, 1975. Originally published by Faber and Gwyer in London, 1928, as Illustrators of the Sixties.
Sutherland, John. "The Genesis of Thackeray's Denis Duval." The Review of English Studies, Volume XXXVII, Issue 146 (1 May 1986): Pp. 226–233.
Thackeray, W. M. Denis Duval, serialized in The Cornhill Magazine. London: Smith Elder, March-June 1864.
Vann, J. Don. "Denis Duval in the Cornhill Magazine, March–June 1864." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1985. P. 140.
Last modified 1 August 2018