Crusoe distributing agricultural implements by George Cruikshank as the seventh vignette for Part Two, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Chapter VI, "The French Clergyman's Counsel, Part 1," 5.3 cm high by 6.3 cm wide, middle of page 391. In many of the scenes in Part Two, Crusoe is a mere spectator rather than an active participant, but here the wealthy planter who has just returned from England with much-needed supplies is the central figure. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
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Passage Illustrated: Supplying agricultural implements from "Further Adventures"
Then I brought them out all my store of tools, and gave every man a digging-spade, a shovel, and a rake, for we had no barrows or ploughs; and to every separate place a pickaxe, a crow, a broad axe, and a saw; always appointing, that as often as any were broken or worn out, they should be supplied without grudging out of the general stores that I left behind. Nails, staples, hinges, hammers, chisels, knives, scissors, and all sorts of ironwork, they had without reserve, as they required; for no man would take more than he wanted, and he must be a fool that would waste or spoil them on any account whatever; and for the use of the smith I left two tons of unwrought iron for a supply.
My magazine of powder and arms which I brought them was such, even to profusion, that they could not but rejoice at them; for now they could march as I used to do, with a musket upon each shoulder, if there was occasion; and were able to fight a thousand savages, if they had but some little advantages of situation, which also they could not miss, if they had occasion. [Chapter 6, "The French Clergyman's Counsel, Part 1," pp. 390-391]
Commentary
As elsewhere in Stothard's sequence, the natural backdrop in Robinson Crusoe distributing tools of husbandry among the inhabitants is another figure in the picture, whereas here in Cruikshank's re-interpretation of the same scene, the tropical hut and generalised trees in the background force the viewer to study the group's responses to Crusoe's gifts. Cruikshank's Crusoe is dressed in rather fashionable seventeenth-century clothing for a mere colonist, but undoubtedly the illustrator is attempting to emphasize his just having arrived from Europe and his now being a man of considerable substance after inheriting his father's estate. However, Cruikshank has given him the style of clothing worn much earlier than 1695.
Related Material
- Daniel Defoe
- Illustrations of Robinson Crusoe by various artists
- Illustrations of children’s editions
Bibliography
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.
De Foe, Daniel. The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Written by Himself. Illustrated by Gilbert, Cruikshank, and Brown. London: Darton and Hodge, 1867?].
Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. (1831). Illustrated by George Cruikshank. Major's Edition. London: Chatto & Windus, 1890.
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.
Last modified 6 March 2018