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Vignette: Franklin Blake sleepwalking (uncaptioned)
William Sharp
ink-and-chalk chromolithograph.
18.1 by 12.7 cm (framed)
Illustration of scene from the "Second Period, Fourth Narrative" in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone, facing p. 388, in the 1946 Doubleday edition. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
He advanced to the middle of the room, with the candle still in his hand: he looked about him— but he never looked back.
I saw the door of Miss Verinder's bedroom, standing ajar. She had put out her light. She controlled herself nobly. The dim white outline of her summer dress was all that I could see. Nobody who had not known it beforehand would have suspected that there was a living creature in the room. She kept back, in the dark: not a word, not a movement escaped her.
It was now ten minutes past one. I heard, through the dead silence, the soft drip of the rain and the tremulous passage of the night air through the trees.
After waiting irresolute, for a minute or more, in the middle of the room, he moved to the corner near the window, where the Indian cabinet stood.
He put his candle on the top of the cabinet. He opened, and shut, one drawer after another, until he came to the drawer in which the mock Diamond was put. He looked into the drawer for a moment. Then he took the mock Diamond out with his right hand. With the other hand, he took the candle from the top of the cabinet.
He walked back a few steps towards the middle of the room, and stood still again.
Thus far, he had exactly repeated what he had done on the birthday night. Would his next proceeding be the same as the proceeding of last year? Would he leave the room? Would he go back now, as I believed he had gone back then, to his bed-chamber? Would he show us what he had done with the Diamond, when he had returned to his own room? —"Second Period, Fourth Narrative,Extracted from the Journal of Ezra Jennings,"p. 399-400.
The original 25 July 1868 illustrations in Harper's Weekly seem to downplay this crucial moment in the laudanum experiment by presenting by himself and unobserved the sleepwalker, Franklin Blake, carrying a candle, in the instalment's headnote thumbnail sketch uncaptioned headnote vignette; the larger picture for that week's number is a dramatic rendering of the scientific preliminary, Ezra Jennings' precisely measuring out of the laudanum, a procedure in which Rachel Verinder participates in the text, but merely observes in the plate. Here, however, Sharp does not even suggest that Rachel is present; his focus is the somnambulent Franklin Blake, centre, who, although surrounded by the rapt observers, seems by his gesture and glazed-over eyes to be totally unaware of their presence as he leaves his assigned bedroom, as indicated by the four-poster bed (left) and leaded-pane windows (centre rear). Paying special attention to Franklin Blake's movements is the dark-skinned Ezra Jennings, hiding behind a curtain.
William Sharp may have had access to the serial instalment in Harper's Weekly for 25 July 1868; moreover, like the serial's headnote vignette for that week, Sharp provides no caption for the illustration that describes Franklin Blake's sleepwalking under the influence of the slightly enlarged dose of laudanum administered by Ezra Jennings. Although he provides considerably more detail, Sharp but does not show Franklin Blake's approaching or opening the cabinet in order to move the Moonstone, whereas F. A. Fraser and Alfred Pearse do. It is not likely, given copyright restrictions, that the British illustrators Pearse and Fraser saw and were influenced by the American illustrations; however, Sharp may well have decided (even with reference to the 1890, 1908, and 1910 British editions of the novel) to emphasize this highly dramatic scene by making it one of his sixteen full-page chromolithographs. In his large-scale illustration, we see the now-familiar figure of Franklin Blake, dressed in a dressing-gown (rather than mere nightgown, as in the British illustrations) and carrying a candle — and yet apparently not awake. Close to the reader, physician Ezra Jennings hides against the wainscotting (right) while a startled Betteredge is in full view, and yet undetected by the sleepwalker. We may take the figures of Jennings and Blake seriously, but Sharp has rendered Bruff and Betteredge as mere caricatures.
Left: Franklin Blake in the Harper's Weekly uncaptioned headnote vignette, Franklin Blake, sleepwalking with a candle. Right: The group prepares the draught for Franklin Blake, "Let me pour out the water," she whispered. (p. 469, 25 July 1868). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
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Left: F. A. Fraser's realisation of Franklin Blake's taking the substitute Moonstone under the influence of laudanum, "He took the mock Diamond out with his right hand." (1890). Centre: Alfred Rearse's recapitulation of the 1890 illustration, "He took the Diamond." (1910). Right: John Sloan's realisation of the sleepwalking scene, "He opened the bedroom door, and went out." (1908). [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
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.
Richardson, Betty. "Prisons and Prison Reform." Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia, ed. Sally Mitchell. London and New York: Garland, 1988. Pp. 638-640.
Stewart, J. I. M. "Introduction." Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966, rpt. 1973. Pp. 7-24.
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 26 October 2016