Headnote vignette for The First Scene, Chapter I, in Wilkie Collins's No Name, first published in Harper's Weekly, Number 1 (the 15 March 1862 instalment): 10.7 cm high by 5.5 cm wide, or 4 ¼ inches high by 2 ⅛ inches wide, vignetted; with the regular illustration, Captain Wragge. Post-Office, Bristol (both on p. 173 in serial). Wood-engraving: 11.7 cm high by 11.5 cm wide, or 4 ½ inches square, framed; p. 16 in volume. These two illustrations are positioned on different pages in the volume: p. 173 in serial for both the vignette and the scene in Captain Wragge meets Miss Garth at the lodge gates of the Combe-Raven estate, but page 15 for the vignette in the volume text, Chapter I, but page 16 in Chapter II for the main illustration).
Passage Illustrated: Captain Wragge attempts to extract information from the Governess
“I shall feel personally obliged if you will honor me by inclosing that card in your letter,” he said. “There is no necessity for my troubling you additionally with a message. My name will be quite sufficient to recall a little family matter to Mrs. Vanstone, which has no doubt escaped her memory. Accept my best thanks. This has been a day of agreeable surprises to me. I have found the country hereabouts remarkably pretty; I have seen Mrs. Vanstone’s two charming daughters; I have become acquainted with an honored preceptress in Mr. Vanstone’s family. I congratulate myself — I apologize for occupying your valuable time — I beg my renewed acknowledgments — I wish you good-morning.”
He raised his tall hat. His brown eye twinkled, his green eye twinkled, his curly lips smiled sweetly. In a moment he turned on his heel. His youthful back appeared to the best advantage; his active little legs took him away trippingly in the direction of the village. One, two, three — and he reached the turn in the road. Four, five, six — and he was gone.
Miss Garth looked down at the card in her hand, and looked up again in blank astonishment. The name and address of the clerical-looking stranger (both written in pencil) ran as follows: Captain Wragge. Post-office, Bristol. [Chapter II, p. 175 in the American serial; p. 17 in volume]
A Note on the Uncaptioned Headnote Vignettes
As we have noted, the 15 March 1862 number on its initial page (173) has two wood-engravings: the uncaptioned headpiece for Chapter 1 (Magdalen) and a second, largerillustration, bottom right, p. 173, showing Miss Garth and Capt. Wragge, Captain Wragge. Post-Office, Bristol (page 16 in volume).
Although the headnote vignettes in Harper's Weekly only once are accompanied by captions or quotations, each small plate at the end of each weekly number incorporates elements of character description from the weekly instalment. Thus, the magazine’s illustrator, John Mclenan, is basing his images of characters in the vignettes upon Collins's actual descriptions of those characters in the ensuing weekly instalment, as, for example, the image of a jolly Magdalen Vanstone in the very first headnote vignette.
She snatched up an empty plate from the table, to represent a sheet of music, held it before her in the established concert-room position, and produced an imitation of the unfortunate singer’s grimaces and courtesyings, so accurately and quaintly true to the original, that her father roared with laughter; and even the footman (who came in at that moment with the post-bag) rushed out of the room again, and committed the indecorum of echoing his master audibly on the other side of the door.
“Letters, papa. I want the key,” said Magdalen, passing from the imitation at the breakfast-table to the post-bag on the sideboard with the easy abruptness which characterized all her actions. [Chapter I, p. 175 in the American serial; but p. 12 in the 1873 volume]
Related Material
- Frontispiece to Wilkie Collins’s No Name (1864) by John Everett Millais
- Victorian Paratextuality: Pictorial Frontispieces and Pictorial Title-Pages
- Wilkie Collins's No Name (1862): Charles Dickens, Sheridan's The Rivals, and the Lost Franklin Expedition
Image scans and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned them and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Blain, Virginia. “Introduction” and “Explanatory Notes” to Wilkie Collins's No Name. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.
