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"Miss Rachel then covered the surface, under his directions and with his help, with patterns and devices." (uncaptioned)
William Sharp
Chromolithograph from chalk-and-ink.
18 x 12.9 cm
Illustration in Part 1, Ch. 12 in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, facing p. 92 in the 1946 Doubleday edition. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
They consumed the whole morning, and part of the afternoon, in the everlasting business of decorating the door, Penelope standing by to mix the colours, as directed; and my lady, as luncheon time drew near, going in and out of the room, with her handkerchief to her nose (for they used a deal of Mr. Franklin's vehicle that day), and trying vainly to get the two artists away from their work. It was three o’clock before they took off their aprons, and released Penelope (much the worse for the vehicle), and cleaned themselves of their mess. But they had done what they wanted — they had finished the door on the birthday, and proud enough they were of it. The griffins, cupids, and so on, were, I must own, most beautiful to behold; though so many in number, so entangled in flowers and devices, and so topsy-turvy in their actions and attitudes, that you felt them unpleasantly in your head for hours after you had done with the pleasure of looking at them. If I add that Penelope ended her part of the morning’s work by being sick in the back-kitchen, it is in no unfriendly spirit towards the vehicle. No! no! It left off stinking when it dried; and if Art requires these sort of sacrifices — though the girl is my own daughter — I say, let Art have them! — "The Story. First Period. The Loss of the Diamond (1848-1849)." Chapter 9, p. 57-58.
Again, Sharp may have had an 1868 Harper's model in mind in making this one his full-page, chalk-and-ink colour illustrations. Through the process of fancifully painting the doors of her sitting-room (or, as the young aristocrats style it, "boudoir") Rachel and Franklin fall in love; the activity is, however, of great significance in the developing mystery as the paint has been smudged and then dried over the night of the birthday celebrations, so that the culprit must have a distinctive paint-smear on his or her clothing, or, more likely, night-gown, or so Sergeant Cuff suspects. In both ways then the scene which Sharp has once again based on one of the original serial wood-engravings is of critical importance; thus, Sharp has chosen to make it one of his full-page chromolithographs rather than mere vignette. Whereas the 1868 version, probably by William Jewett, entitled "Miss Rachel then covered the surface, under his directions and with his help, with patterns and devices" (25 January 1868), depicts Franklin supervising and Rachel painting according to the instructions that he is reading, this updated version has not only the couple, painting, but also includes Betteredge in the background, pretending not to be observing them. One also receives some sense of the size of this Jacobean (or pseudo-Jacobean) mansion. The 1946 plate is a departure from its 1868 counterpart, however, in that Franklin Blake and Rachel Verinder are equally engaged in the painting, and neither is "directing" the other.
Above: The highly effective climactic wood-engraving in the original serial in Harper's of the morning before Franklin Blake goes to Frizinghall to collect his cousins and the Moonstone, "Miss Rachel then covered the surface, under his directions and with his help, with patterns and devices" (25 January 1868). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone: A Romance. with sixty-six illustrations. Harper's Weekly: A Journal of Civilization. Vol. 12 (1868), 4 January through 8 August, pp. 5-503.
Collins, Wilkie. The Moonstone: A Romance. All the Year Round. 1 January-8 August 1868.
_________. The Moonstone: A Novel. With many illustrations. First edition. New York: Harper and Brothers, [July] 1868.
_________. The Moonstone: A Novel. With 19 illustrations. Second edition. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1874.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. Illustrated by George Du Maurier and F. A. Fraser. London: Chatto and Windus, 1890.
_________. The Moonstone. With 19 illustrations. The Works of Wilkie Collins. New York: Peter Fenelon Collier, 1900. Volumes 6 and 7.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. With four illustrations by John Sloan. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1908.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. Illustrated by A. S. Pearse. London & Glasgow: Collins, 1910, rpt. 1930.
_________. The Moonstone. Illustrated by William Sharp. New York: Doubleday, 1946.
_________. The Moonstone: A Romance. With nine illustrations by Edwin La Dell. London: Folio Society, 1951.
Karl, Frederick R. "Introduction." Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone. Scarborough, Ontario: Signet, 1984. Pp. 1-21.
Leighton, Mary Elizabeth, and Lisa Surridge. "The Transatlantic Moonstone: A Study of the Illustrated Serial in Harper's Weekly." Victorian Periodicals Review Volume 42, Number 3 (Fall 2009): pp. 207-243. Accessed 1 July 2016. http://englishnovel2.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2014/01/42.3.leighton-moonstone-serializatation.pdf
Nayder, Lillian. Unequal Partners: Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, & Victorian Authorship. London and Ithaca, NY: Cornll U. P., 2001.
Peters, Catherine. The King of the Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins. London: Minerva, 1991.
Reed, John R. "English Imperialism and the Unacknowledged crime of The Moonstone. Clio 2, 3 (June, 1973): 281-290.
Stewart, J. I. M. "A Note on Sources." Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966, rpt. 1973. Pp. 527-8.
Vann, J. Don. "The Moonstone in All the Year Round, 4 January-8 1868." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: Modern Language Association, 1985. Pp. 48-50.
Winter, William. "Wilkie Collins." Old Friends: Being Literary Recollections of Other Days. New York: Moffat, Yard, & Co., 1909. Pp. 203-219.
Last updated 2 October 2016