"I espied a small piece of rope." — illustration for Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" (1891)

"I espied a small piece of rope"

Wal Paget (1863-1935)

full-page lithograph

17.8 cm high by 12.9 cm wide, framed.

1891

Robinson Crusoe, facing page illustrated (35).

Scanned image 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 photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Passage Illustrated: Swimming out to the Wreck

A little after noon I found the sea very calm, and the tide ebbed so far out that I could come within a quarter of a mile of the ship. And here I found a fresh renewing of my grief; for I saw evidently that if we had kept on board we had been all safe—that is to say, we had all got safe on shore, and I had not been so miserable as to be left entirely destitute of all comfort and company as I now was. This forced tears to my eyes again; but as there was little relief in that, I resolved, if possible, to get to the ship; so I pulled off my clothes—for the weather was hot to extremity—and took the water. But when I came to the ship my difficulty was still greater to know how to get on board; for, as she lay aground, and high out of the water, there was nothing within my reach to lay hold of. I swam round her twice, and the second time I spied a small piece of rope, which I wondered I did not see at first, hung down by the fore-chains so low, as that with great difficulty I got hold of it, and by the help of that rope I got up into the forecastle of the ship. Here I found that the ship was bulged, and had a great deal of water in her hold, but that she lay so on the side of a bank of hard sand, or, rather earth, that her stern lay lifted up upon the bank, and her head low, almost to the water. By this means all her quarter was free, and all that was in that part was dry; for you may be sure my first work was to search, and to see what was spoiled and what was free. And, first, I found that all the ship’s provisions were dry and untouched by the water, and being very well disposed to eat, I went to the bread room and filled my pockets with biscuit, and ate it as I went about other things, for I had no time to lose. I also found some rum in the great cabin, of which I took a large dram, and which I had, indeed, need enough of to spirit me for what was before me. Now I wanted nothing but a boat to furnish myself with many things which I foresaw would be very necessary to me. [Chapter IV, "First Weeks on the Island," pp. 34-35]

Commentary

Although Crusoe's returning to the wreck of the slave-ship to retrieve supplies inspired a number of nineteenth-century illustrators, only Paget has Crusoe climbing aboard. Others, such as Thomas Stothard and George Cruikshank, have depicted young Crusoe on his make-shift raft. Paget had the advantage over all previous illustrators because he had had the opportunity to study the narrative-pictorial series of Thomas Stothard, George Cruikshank, Hablot Knight Browne, and probably Sir John Gilbert and Edward Henry Wehnert. Accordingly, Paget decided to avoid the now-hackneyed image of Crusoe as a plucky English tar on his raft to reveal a more vulnerable moment in his struggle for survival on the unnamed, "desert" (uninhabited) island.

Wal Paget, therefore, decided to elaborate on the beautiful craftsmanship of this relic of the Age of Sail, a nostalgic look backward from the Age of Steam to the romance (and attendant hazards) of the previous transportation era. The elaborately carved aristocratic male head (left), suggesting a study of Charles II, and the stylized figurehead, lion wearing a crown (right), constitute an assertion of European imperium in ironic circumstances as the entire crew except for Crusoe have been swept overboard in a tropical storm off a nondescript island (right rear) that will become Crusoe's home for the next twenty-eight years. Paget realizes the rigging, anchor, planking, and bowsprit with photographic realism, enforcing belief in the fictional narrative as autobiography.

Related Material

Parallel Scenes from Stothard (1790), Cruikshank (1831), Wehnert (1862), and Cassell's (1863-64)

The 1863 Cassell's woodblock engraving of young Crusoe's climbing down from the ship onto his raft: Crusoe loading his raft.

Reference

Defoe, Daniel. The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner. As Related by Himself. With upwards of One Hundred and Twenty Original Illustrations by Walter Paget. London, Paris, and Melbourne: Cassell, 1891.

Last modified 25 April 2018