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Headnote vignette, "Epilogue": East Indiaman in full sail (uncaptioned)
William Sharp
Pen-ank-ink line drawing (woodblock engraving).
4.2 x 5.8 cm
The headnote vignette follows up on the previous full-page chromolithograph (facing p. 436) of the three Brahamins, having already eluded the English police, rowing away from the East Indiaman in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone (Doubleday, 1946), p. 439. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
On the twenty-seventh of June last, I received instructions from Sergeant Cuff to follow three men; suspected of murder, and described as Indians. They had been seen on the Tower Wharf that morning, embarking on board the steamer bound for Rotterdam.
I left London by a steamer belonging to another company, which sailed on the morning of Thursday the twenty-eighth. Arriving at Rotterdam, I succeeded in finding the commander of the Wednesday’s steamer. He informed me that the Indians had certainly been passengers on board his vessel—but as far as Gravesend only. Off that place, one of the three had inquired at what time they would reach Calais. On being informed that the steamer was bound to Rotterdam, the spokesman of the party expressed the greatest surprise and distress at the mistake which he and his two friends had made. They were all willing (he said) to sacrifice their passage money, if the commander of the steamer would only put them ashore. Commiserating their position, as foreigners in a strange land, and knowing no reason for detaining them, the commander signalled for a shore boat, and the three men left the vessel. — "Epilogue. The Finding of the Diamond: I, The Statement of Sergeant Cuff's Man (1849)," p. 439.
The discipline of a ship (as all seafaring persons know) becomes relaxed in a long calm. The discipline of my ship became relaxed. Certain gentlemen among the passengers got some of the smaller boats lowered, and amused themselves by rowing about, and swimming, when the sun at evening time was cool enough to let them divert themselves in that way. The boats when done with ought to have been slung up again in their places. Instead of this they were left moored to the ship's side. What with the heat, and what with the vexation of the weather, neither officers nor men seemed to be in heart for their duty while the calm lasted.
On the third night, nothing unusual was heard or seen by the watch on deck. When the morning came, the smallest of the boats was missing — and the three Hindoos were next reported to be missing, too.
If these men had stolen the boat shortly after dark (which I have no doubt they did), we were near enough to the land to make it vain to send in pursuit of them, when the discovery was made in the morning. I have no doubt they got ashore, in that calm weather (making all due allowance for fatigue and clumsy rowing), before day-break. — "Epilogue. The Finding of the Diamond: II, The Statement of the Captain (1849)," p. 440-441.
Sharp deploys the uncaptioned headnote vignette of an East Indiaman to re-establish the strand of the plot dealing with the fate of the three Brahmins who disguised themselves as "jugglers" or travelling acrobats at the beginning of the story. Switching ships, the trio elude the authorities and thereby evade prosecution for the murder of the perfidious Godfrey Ablewhite by switching from the Rotterdam steamer, departing from central London's Tower Wharf, to an East Indiaman, sailing directly from the port of Plymouth on the English Channel for India's largest city, Bombay (Mombai). Becalmed off the Indian coast, they once again elude the police by jumping ship, and make their way to Somnauth to restore the Moonstone to the idol of the Hindu Moon God. This aspect of the story, the return journey of the Brahmins, is neglected in the original serial illustrations in Harper's Weekly, which conclude with the re-installation and departure scene at the temple, in Part Thirty-two (8 August 1868), "Never more were they to look upon one another's faces", in which, in deference to the commands of their deity, they separate forever. Sharp devotes three of his last illustrations to the fate of the pious Brahmins, returning home: The Three Brahmins, rowing away from the East Indiaman (facing p. 436), the present illustration, and Ornamental tailpiece: The Temple of the Moon God at Somnauth, p. 444. These emphasize the importance of the Moonstone as a religious object, and throw the romance of Franklin Blake and Rachel Verinder into the background, so that we construe Sharp's final illustrations as a "Post-Colonial" reading of the mid-Victorian text. In the first of the East Indiaman illustrations, logically the ship should be shown becalmed at night, rather than in full-sail, since the Brahmins have successfully made their get away by first light.
Left: An oversized version of the Diamond presides over the temple, Uncaptioned headnote vignette for "Chapter XI"< (8 February 1868, p. 405).Centre: The original 1868 Jewett and C. B. illustration of the idol: frontispiece of the Collier edition (The Idol of the Moon) (1900). Right: the serial's final illustration, "Never more were they to look upon one another's faces." (8 August 1868, p. 503). [Click on 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.
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 4 November 2016