“By Order of the King, Fire!” Phiz (Hablot K. Browne). 1866. Wood engraving/ Errym’s A Mystery in Scarlet. Courtesy Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington. Click on image to enlarge it. Note: Phiz’s illustrations appeared on the cover of each number with the title of the magazine and caption of the picture as shown above. Since Phiz was not responsible for the drawing the letters in the title, it has been omitted in the following plates reproduced in the Victorian Web.
Text Illustrated
Loudly and clearly his voice rang through the apartment.
"By order of the king, fire!" (2).
Commentary
In this illustration, Phiz opens the serial by establishing the early Hanoverian setting, the opulence of Kew Palace, and the central opposition between the heroic, elegant hero Markham (left) and the cowardly royal sycophant Norris (left centre). Phiz appropriately awards the central place in the composition to the eponymous A Mystery in Scarlet, who is concealed upstage of the tapestry. Phiz faithfully illustrates Rymer’s text: Norris “crouche[s] down” and grabs Markham, who “point[s] to the tapestry through which gleamed the precarious faint illumination” (Rymer 2). It is easy to see this juxtaposition of dazzling hero and gnome-like villain graven onto the memory of the young Robert Louis Stevenson, as that writer claimed in Scribner’s Magazine in 1889.
Image scan by the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington. Commentary by Rebecca Nesvet, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay. Formatting, mage color, correction and sizing by George P. Landow.[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and Indiana University and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
Bibliography
Errym, Malcolm J [James Malcolm Rymer]. A Mystery in Scarlet, leading serial of The London Miscellany, ed. James Malcolm Rymer, 1, no. 1-18 (1866). From the copy in the collection of the Wells Library, Indiana University, Bloomington. Courtesy Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.
Last modified 12 July 2019