The retired Scotland Yard detective, Sergeant Cuff, making a point about the thief, much as criminal defence attorney Mr. Jaggers does in Dickens's Great Expectations (1861) — uncaptioned headnote vignette for the "The Story. Second Period," positioned at the start of the "Sixth Narrative. Contributed by Sergeant Cuff," p. 423, in the Doubleday (New York) 1946 edition of The Moonstone. 4.1 x 5.7 cm. [The vigorous line drawing of the retired but still worldly-wise consulting detective, Sergeant Cuff, serves to introduce his own, concluding narrative about the "hidden life" and fate the duplicitous Godfrey Ablewhite, after his body has been unmasked in the upper room of The Wheel of Fortune public house near Tower Wharf in the previous narrative.] Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [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 (2) link your document to this URL.]
Passage Introduced
Dorking, Surrey, July 30th, 1849. To Franklin Blake, Esq. Sir, — I beg to apologise for the delay that has occurred in the production of the Report, with which I engaged to furnish you. I have waited to make it a complete Report; and I have been met, here and there, by obstacles which it was only possible to remove by some little expenditure of patience and time.
The object which I proposed to myself has now, I hope, been attained. You will find, in these pages, answers to the greater part — if not all — of the questions, concerning the late Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, which occurred to your mind when I last had the honour of seeing you.
I propose to tell you — in the first place — what is known of the manner in which your cousin met his death; appending to the statement such inferences and conclusions as we are justified (according to my opinion) in drawing from the facts.
I shall then endeavour — in the second place — to put you in possession of such discoveries as I have made, respecting the proceedings of Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, before, during and after the time, when you and he met as guests at the late Lady Verinder’s country-house. — "Second Period. The Discovery of the Truth (1848-1849), Sixth Narrative," I, p. 423.
The Other Eight Illustrations of Sergeant Cuff by William Sharp:
- Sergeant Cuff arrives
- Sergeant Cuff, Lady Julia, and Gabriel Betteredge
- Sergeant Cuff interviews Rosanna Spearman
- Sergeant Cuff and Gabriel Betteredge, examining boot-prints in the sand
- Sergeant Cuff, Mrs. Yolland, and Gabriel Betteredge at Cobb's Hole
- Sergeant Cuff and Gabriel Betteredge in the Verinder library
- Sergeant Cuff on the cliffs
- Gooseberry, Cuff, and Blake find Godfrey Ablewhite dead .
The relevant wood-engraving from the 1868 Edition: The upper room at The Wheel of Fortune.
Above: The highly effective climactic wood-engraving in the original serial in Harper's of the moment just before "The Discovery of the Truth," "Look at the man's face. It is a face disguised — and here's proof of it!" (1 August 1868). [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Related Materials
- The Moonstone and British India (1857, 1868, and 1876)
- Detection and Disruption inside and outside the 'quiet English home' in The Moonstone
- Introduction to the Sixty-six Harper's Weekly Illustrations for The Moonstone (1868)
- The Harper's Weekly Illustrations for Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone (1868)
- George Du Maurier, "Do you think a young lady's advice worth having?" — p. 94.
- Illustrations by F. A. Fraser for Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone: A Romance (1890)
- Illustrations by John Sloan for Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone: A Romance (1908)
- 1910 illustrations by Alfred Pearse for The Moonstone.
References
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 28 October 2016