[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Marcus Stone —> Next]
With Estella after all
Marcus Stone
Wood engraving
5 ⅛ by 3 ⅜ inches (13.2 cm by 8.8 cm)
I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.
Dickens's Great Expectations, Garnett edition, facing p. 558.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
“I have often thought of you,” said Estella.
“Have you?”
“Of late, very often. There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth. But since my duty has not been incompatible with the admission of that remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart.”
“You have always held your place in my heart,” I answered.
And we were silent again until she spoke.
“I little thought,” said Estella, “that I should take leave of you in taking leave of this spot. I am very glad to do so.”
“Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a painful thing. To me, the remembrance of our last parting has been ever mournful and painful.”
“But you said to me,” returned Estella, very earnestly, “‘God bless you, God forgive you!’ And if you could say that to me then, you will not hesitate to say that to me now, — now, when suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but — I hope — into a better shape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we are friends.”
“We are friends,” said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from the bench.
“And will continue friends apart,” said Estella.
I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her. [Chapter LIX, 558]
A tantalising detail about the initial lack of illustrations for Great Illustrations is that Dickens seems to have deliberately avoided issuing the kind of parallel illustrated instalments that he had used to complement the unillustrated Tale of Two Cities in All the Year Round in its inaugural numbers in 1859.
Dickens may not have intended to illustrate Great Illustrations but that did not prevent a young lady from sending him some black and white drawings in the hope of his using them. He returned them with a rather curt note; ". . . The enclosed sketches have considerable merit as a lady's drawings, though I cannot honestly say that they express my intention in their rendering of character. But I am not associated with an illustrated work, nor am I at all likely to be . . .
Pilgrim Letters. Vol. 9, 18th March 1861. [as reproduced in The Dickens Magazine, Series I, No. 6, page 10]
And yet here we are, examining Marcus Stone's eight full-page wood-engravings for the 1862 Illustrated Library Edition. Perhaps the episode with the unsolicited drawing brought home to Dickens the marketing advantages of illustrations in the volume edition of his unillustrated serialised novel. The Stone series is not of uniform quality, but this final illustration, with its embedded stars suggesting the operation of destiny, fate, or Providence in the lives of the characters, is particularly effective, with the dual portrait of a bearded, burly Pip and world-weary Estella a fitting close to the strain of romance that Dickens sounds in the volume edition's final pages.
The energy, intellect, and spirit of the British middle class, exemplified by the noble heads of Stone's Pip and Estella in his final plate, are the forces upon which the commercial and political stability of the Empire depends. Rising above their labouring-class origins and turbid pasts, Pip and Estella here possess a mutual confidence in each other and an affection for one another that contrast with the static stoicism of American illustrator John McLenan's younger, more slender figures. Stone's rather more substantial and mature figures seem more self-assured.
Left: John McLenan's serial conclusion of the Pip and Estella in the 3 August 1861 Harper's Weekly series: I saw the shadow of no parting from her, as they stand silently, ready to leave the ruined garden of Satis House together. Centre: F. A. Fraser's Household Edition version is rather low-key for a romantic finalé: We sat down on a bench that was near (1876). Right: Harry Furniss's rather undramatic reunion of the mature, respectably dressed lovers: Estella and Pip (1910).
Allingham, Philip V. "The Illustrations for Great Expectations in Harper's Weekly (1860-61) and in the Illustrated Library Edition (1862) — 'Reading by the Light of Illustration'." Dickens Studies Annual, Vol. 40 (2009): 113-169.
Bentley, Nicolas, Michael Slater, and Nina Burgis. The Dickens Index. Oxford and New York: Oxford U. P., 1988.
Allingham, Philip V. "'We Can Now See That the Days of Illustrated Novels Were Drawing to an End' — Not So." The Dickens Magazine. Haslemere, Surrey: Bishops Printers. Series 1, Issue 3, pp. 6-7.
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. The Letters of Charles Dickens. Ed. Madeline House, Graham Storey, and Kathleen Tillotson. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965. Vol. 9 (1859-1861).
_______. Great Expectations. All the Year Round. Vols. IV and V. 1 December 1860 through 3 August 1861.
_______. ("Boz."). Great Expectations. With thirty-four illustrations from original designs by John McLenan. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson (by agreement with Harper & Bros., New York), 1861.
_______. Great Expectations. Illustrated by Marcus Stone. The Illustrated Library Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1862. Rpt. in The Nonesuch Dickens, Great Expectations and Hard Times. London: Nonesuch, 1937; Overlook and Worth Presses, 2005.
_______. A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition.16 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. XIII.
_______. Great Expectations. Volume 6 of the Household Edition. Illustrated by F. A. Fraser. London: Chapman and Hall, 1876.
_______. Great Expectations. The Gadshill Edition. Illustrated by Charles Green. London: Chapman and Hall, 1897-1908.
_______. Great Expectations. "With 28 Original Plates by Harry Furniss." Volume 14 of the Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book Co., 1910.
"Illustrations to Great Expectations." The Dickens Magazine, Series I, No. 6, page 10.
McLenan, John, illustrator. Charles Dickens's Great Expectations [the First American Edition]. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, Vols. IV: 740 through V: 495 (24 November 1860-3 August 1861). Rpt. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson, 1861.
The Letters of Charles Dickens. General editors Madeline House, Graham Storey, and Kathleen Tillotson. Vol. 9 (1859-61), ed. Madeline House, Graham Storey, and Kathleen Tillotson; 1997. Vol. 11 (1865-1867), ed. Graham Storey; 1999. Oxford: Clarendon.
Rosenberg, Edgar (ed.). "Launching Great Expectations." Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. New York: W. W. Norton, 1999. Pp. 389-423.
Stein, Robert A. "Dickens and Illustration." The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens. Ed. John O. Jordan. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2001. 167-188.
Watts, Alan S. "Why Wasn't Great Expectations Illustrated?" The Dickens Magazine. Haslemere, Surrey: Bishops Printers. Series 1, Issue 2, pp. 8-9.
Waugh, Arthur. "Charles Dickens and His Illustrators." Retrospectus and Prospectus: The Nonesuch Dickens. London: Bloomsbury, 1937, rpt. 2003. Pp. 6-52.
Created 26 February 2004 Last modified 2 November 2021