Will Atkins and his native Wife
George Cruikshank
1831
Wood-engraving
full-page, framed
Frontispiece for Volume Two of Daniel Defoe's Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1831), facing title-page.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Upon this discourse, however, and their promising, as above, to endeavour to persuade their wives to embrace Christianity, he married the two other couple; but Will Atkins and his wife were not yet come in. After this, my clergyman, waiting a w hile, was curious to know where Atkins was gone, and turning to me, said, "I entreat you, sir, let us walk out of your labyrinth here and look; I daresay we shall find this poor man somewhere or other talking seriously to his wife, and teaching her already something of religion." I began to be of the same mind; so we went out together, and I carried him a way which none knew but myself, and where the trees were so very thick that it was not easy to see through the thicket of leaves, and far harder to see in than to see out: when, coming to the edge of the wood, I saw Atkins and his tawny wife sitting under the shade of a bush, very eager in discourse: I stopped short till my clergyman came up to me, and then having showed him where they were, we stood and looked very steadily at them a good while. We observed him very earnest with her, pointing up to the sun, and to every quarter of the heavens, and then down to the earth, then out to the sea, then to himself, then to her, to the woods, to the trees. "Now," says the clergyman, "you see my words are made good, the man preaches to her; mark him now, he is telling her that our God has made him, her, and the heavens, the earth, the sea, the woods, the trees, &c." — "I believe he is," said I. Immediately we perceived Will Atkins start upon his feet, fall down on his knees, and lift up both his hands. We supposed he said something, but we could not hear him; it was too far for that. He did not continue kneeling half a minute, but comes and sits down again by his wife, and talks to her again; we perceived then the woman very attentive, but whether she said anything to him we could not tell. While the poor fellow was upon his knees I could see the tears run plentifully down my clergyman’s cheeks, and I could hardly forbear myself; but it was a great affliction to us both that we were not near enough to hear anything that passed between them. Well, however, we could come no nearer for fear of disturbing them: so we resolved to see an end of this piece of still conversation, and it spoke loud enough to us without the help of voice. He sat down again, as I have said, close by her, and talked again earnestly to her, and two or three times we could see him embrace her most passionately; another time we saw him take out his handkerchief and wipe her eyes, and then kiss her again with a kind of transport very unusual; and after several of these things, we saw him on a sudden jump up again, and lend her his hand to help her up, when immediately leading her by the hand a step or two, they both kneeled down together, and continued so about two minutes. [Chapter VI, "The Clergyman's Counsel," pp. 412-414]
To the present-day reader Cruikshank's choice of subject for the second frontispiece in the 1831 edition may seem a little odd. By 1831, the evangelical nature of Defoe's narrative must have been fully apparent to all readers, so that those nineteenth-century readers would not have demurred at the overt Christian message in the frontispiece for the second volume, which begins with Crusoe's returning to "his" Caribbean island to see how the English and Spanish colonists are faring. What would have surprised the readers of John Major's 1831 edition would simply have been the absence of Crusoe and Friday, the chief characters of the adventures in the first volume, from the frontispiece. However, Cruikshank's point may simply be that Defoe in the second series of travel adventures transforms Crusoe from young castaway to aged traveller, from vigorous protagonist to peripheral observer, from central actor to reporter.
The scene is Will Atkins' plantation, which Crusoe visits upon his return to the island to gauge the progress of the colonists, not merely towards agricultural development and the acquisition of material wealth, but towards civilised thought. Since Atkins like the other colonists has taken a native wife, Crusoe is delighted to learn that Atkins, formerly a ruffian, has embraced Christianity, and has even taken steps to educate his wife in the precepts of the Old Country's monotheistic religion; in consequence, their children will not be pagan or agnostic aborigines, but English colonists — and children of Empire. Cruikshank in choosing this particular scene for the frontispiece for The Farther Adventures focuses, then, on Robinson Crusoe as a force for spiritual enlightenment rather than a mere agent of European imperialism.
The first John Major edition is two small octavo volumes (6 9/16 x 4 1/16 inches; 166 x 104 mm.). [viii], xvi, 434, [1, imprint, verso blank]; [ii], 406 pp. Together, these slight volumes contain two engraved frontispieces and thirty-eight woodcut illustrations dropped into the text. It was bound without a half-title for volume two. Neither frontispiece was reproduced in the 1890 edition issued by Routledge. That the second frontispiece concerns the reformed ruffian and good son of Empire Will Atkins rather than the mature Crusoe reflects Cruikshank's comprehension of Defoe's having made Robinson Crusoe less of an active participant and more of a passive (although astute) observer and commentator in the sequel, The Farther Adventures.
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 7 March 2018
