Plate 4, “The Prisoner of Chillon” by William and George Audsley

Plate 4

William and George Audsley

32 x 22.5 cm.

Beckwith, Victorian Bibliomania catalogue no. 31

Source: Byron's The Prisoner of Chillon

Collection: John Hay Library, Brown University

Lord Byron's The Prisoner of Chillon, first published in 1816, relates the tale of a prisoner of conscience shackled with his two brothers in the dungeon of the famous Swiss medieval castle. The narrator is the eldest brother, and the only survivor. [continued below]

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Commentary by Alice H. R. H. Beckwith

The Audsley brothers, apparently inspired by Byron's portrayal of a principled man's triumph over death and imprisonment, chose to print his poem with luminously bright, complex geometric illumination. The red-ruled centered text block is in Gothic type, beginning with red initials and concluding with red stylized line endings, printed on a buff background.

Byron's divisions of the poem are signaled by large illuminated initials set in a block four lines tall, as seen here on page 4 where the first letter of the fourth stanza is marked by an illuminated I. Each of the twenty pages in the book is printed on one side only, as in the Audsleys' Sermon on the Mount (cat. 9). Another similarity to Sermon on the Mount is the creative and inventive border ornament. There is a sense of historical precedent in the curving vines at the base of page four, but no other period produced anything quite like this page as a whole.

John Leighton's symmetrical symbolic binding designs (cat. 29) undoubtedly influenced the cover design, done by the Audsleys or possibly Tymms, but again the motifs are unique to The Prisoner of Chillon. The title and BYRON are stamped on gilt bands in a central diamond. Linked chains outline the perimeter of the diamond, marking off four right triangles which hold hexafoils with central shields carrying images suggested by the poem: in clockwise order, a column with a chain attached, a portcullis, leg irons, and a broken chain. The dramatic and colorful way the Audsleys chose to represent the instruments of imprisonment and torture, in gold stamped against a maroon ground, evokes triumphant images of Christ overcoming imprisonment and crucifixion. The Audsleys were familiar with Christian imagery, having published their Handbook of Christian Symbolism in the same year as The Prisoner of Chillon. In The Prisoner of Chillon the theme of purification through suffering is constantly reiterated, thus transforming secular torture into a sacred event, and as with Byron himself, a secular hero suffering or dying for his ideals takes his place in the modern pantheon.

References

Beckwith, Alice H. R. H. Victorian Bibliomania: The Illuminated Book in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Exhibition catalogue. Providence. Rhode Island: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1987.

Byron, George Gordon Lord. The Prisoner of Chillon. London: Day & Son Ltd. (1865?). Illuminators: William and George Audsley. Chromolithography: W. R. Tymms.

Last modified 29 December 2013