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Crusoe in his Fort
Matt Somerville Morgan
Engravers: Butterworth and Heath
1863-64
Wood-engraving
17.5 cm high by 14.3 cm wide, framed.
Cassell's Robinson Crusoe, page 121.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image by Philip V. Allingham. Commentary by Allingham and George P. Landow
I resolved to bring hither [to a cave] my magazine of powder, and all my spare arms — viz. two fowling-pieces — for I had three in all — and three muskets — for of them I had eight in all; so I kept in my castle only five, which stood ready mounted like pieces of cannon on my outmost fence, and were ready also to take out upon any expedition. [Chapter XII, "A Cave Retreat," p. 120]
Above: George Cruikshank's caricatural wood-engraving of the cannibals' rites, Cannibals dancing around a fire (1831), in which the illustrator does not depict the observer. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
The illustrators of the 1863-64 Cassell edition have responded to George Cruikshank's 1831 title-page vignette for the John Major edition of the novel, which depicts the dangerous "others" practising their vicious rites unaware that their activities are being monitored. The 1863 image of Crusoe's watching them from the security of his fortress and heavily armed shifts the emphasis from the foreign and exotic "others" to the attitude of the observer himself. The subject of the cannibal dance becomes a psychological study of Crusoe as he observes the activity of the cannibals from his fortress above the beach. Thus, the illustrator "M" (either Thomas R. Macquoid or Matt Somerville Morgan — probably the latter since Macquoid had the habit of signing himself "Thos Macquoid," whereas Morgan has signed himself in other works as "M" — or perhaps one "M" superimposed upon another) has made Crusoe's reaction rather than the dancing visitors the actual subject.
Despite the fact that the illustrator has emphasized Crusoe's advanced European weaponry by placing it in the centre of the composition, Crusoe's expression is hardly blood-thirsty. Crusoe originally has no intention of interfering in the cannibals' grisly feast on his otherwise pristine island — as long as they leave him alone. However, when the cannibals arrive again to celebrate a ritual feast, Crusoe sees a victim make a desperate attempt to escape his fate, and suddenly decides to intervene, no matter what the consequences.
This is the eighth illustration in which the Cassell's artists have depicted Crusoe wearing goatskin clothing rather than broadcloth, an image shift that underscores his adaptability, but also his determination to protect himself from the tropic sun and maintain a European complexion.
I had a great high shapeless cap, made of a goat’s skin, with a flap hanging down behind, as well to keep the sun from me as to shoot the rain off from running into my neck, nothing being so hurtful in these climates as the rain upon the flesh under the clothes.
I had a short jacket of goat’s skin, the skirts coming down to about the middle of the thighs, and a pair of open-kneed breeches of the same; the breeches were made of the skin of an old he-goat, whose hair hung down such a length on either side that, like pantaloons, it reached to the middle of my legs; stockings and shoes I had none, but had made me a pair of somethings, I scarce knew what to call them, like buskins, to flap over my legs, and lace on either side like spatterdashes, but of a most barbarous shape, as indeed were all the rest of my clothes. [Chapter XI, "Finds Print of a Man's Foot in the Sand," p. 100 of the Cassell edition]
This passage accompanies the George Housman Thomas illustration Crusoe sees a Foot-print in the Sand (p. 101), which is the first full study of Crusoe's island garb. Whereas that earlier picture shows Crusoe fully encased in goatskins, including his head-covering, the next few illustrations show Crusoe without the hat (as in Crusoe finds a Dying Goat, p. 117) or with sleeves of broadcloth here. The inconsistencies are likely the result of so many illustrators working on the images for these pages, but one might well wonder why, even with his indisposition to the tropic sun, Crusoe feels compelled to wear so much clothing. Crusoe explains that the
reason why I could not go naked was, I could not bear the heat of the sun so well when quite naked as with some clothes on; nay, the very heat frequently blistered my skin: whereas, with a shirt on, the air itself made some motion, and whistling under the shirt, was twofold cooler than without it. No more could I ever bring myself to go out in the heat of the sun without a cap or a hat; the heat of the sun, beating with such violence as it does in that place, would give me the headache presently, by darting so directly on my head, without a cap or hat on, so that I could not bear it; whereas, if I put on my hat it would presently go away. [Chapter IX, "A Boat," pp. 90-91 of the Cassell edition]
The iconic image of a bearded European in goatskin clothing is closely associated with Crusoe, and all Defoe’s nineteenth-century illustrators mark the shift from young Crusoe’s European clothing when he first reaches the island to his later goatskins. The illustrations in the Cassell edition mark the shift from broadcloth in Crusoe making a Coat (p. 89) to the full island look in Crusoe sails out of his Creek (p. 93).
From the book's initial appearance in 1719 some readers may have wondered why a European castaway would wears such heavy clothing on a tropical island, a question certainly germane to the ways Victorian artists depict the castaway once his European clothing wears out. As we have seen above, Crusoe explains that he wears his goatskins because he cannot tolerate the tropical sun. Without his goatskin suit, parasol, and cap he could not, he says, explore, gather, cultivate, hunt, and herd. He could not, in other words, act like a civilized Briton.
The shift from English broadcloth to furry goatskins therefore represents an early eighteenth-century depiction of English ingenious adaptability to a hostile environment, precisely the kind of quality necessary in exploration, conquest, and empire. Another, related reason that Defoe and his illustrators emphasize how Crusoe covers himself much more than might seem necessary appears with particularly clarity in the depictions of the first encounter of Crusoe and Friday. Clothing, particularly clothing that covers excessively, marks Crusoe as civilized, whereas the near-naked Friday (and later other indigenous peoples they encounter) are savages, uncivilized — people, in other words, who need the guidance of Europeans. As anthropologists like Claude Lévi-Strauss have explained, human beings use clothing, bodily decoration, and bodily modification, such as tattoos, teeth-filing, and scarification, as means of both distinguishing themselves from animals and proclaiming such different, higher status. Crusoe's goatskin getup appears much cruder, more savage, than his earlier native European dress, and it is, but in this context, where the Others wear almost no clothing, it marks Crusoe as a higher, more civilized being. Considering the obvious discomfort that such a costume would produce — something more obvious in Victorian illustrations than in the text of the novel itself — one can see Crusoe’s goatskin suit as anticipating the way British colonizers would dress for dinner in formal garb despite major discomfort as a means of asserting their superior level of civilization and civility.
The last time in the Cassell edition that Crusoe is depicted wearing goatskins (which Friday also wears) is Crusoe discovers Himself to the English Captain (p. 169). By the time he returns to Europe and has his adventures in Gascony, Crusoe wears the fashionable clothing of a cavalier, with broad-brimmed hat, top-boots, and cloak in Crusoe's troop on the march (p. 193).
Left: Stothard's 1790 realisation of the rescue scene, an illustration of which Cruikshank was probably aware, Robinson Crusoe first sees and rescues his man Friday (copper-plate engraving, [Chapter XIV, "A Dream Realised"). Centre: Phiz's steel-engraved frontispiece, with the surviving pursuer about to attack the unwitting Crusoe, Robinson Crusoe rescues Friday (1864). Right: Colourful realisation of the same scene, with a decidedly subservient and Negroid Friday contrasting the Caucasian Crusoe: Friday's first interview with Robinson Crusoe. (1818). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Left: Cruikshank's 1831 realisation of the rescue scene, Crusoe having just rescued Friday (frontispiece, Volume I). Centre: Sir John Gilbert's realisation of the rescue scene, Crusoe rescues Friday (1867?). Right: An emotionally compelling image of Crusoe in a goatskin shift or nightshirt (1862), Crusoe finds a drowned boy. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner. As Related by himself. With upwards of One Hundred Illustrations. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin, 1863-64.
Last modified 16 March 2018