[The exiled Grand-Duchess of Castelcicala] — illustration for G. W. M. Reynolds’s “The Mysteries of London” by G. Stiff

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The exiled Grand-Duchess of Castelcicala

G. Stiff

1846

Wood engraving

Source: The Project Gutenberg version of G. W. M. Reynolds’s The Mysteries of London

Click on image to enlarge it and see see passage illustrated below.

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Passage illustrated

And now on the sofa in that parlour sate Eliza Sydney herself,—dressed in deep mourning.

She was pale—but beautiful as ever!

The snow-white widow's cap concealed her bright chesnut hair, save where the shining masses were parted, glossy and smooth, over her lofty and polished forehead.

The high black dress and plain collar covered the snowy whiteness of her neck, but still displayed the admirable contours of her bust. [Chapter 225, “The Old Hag’s History”]

This plate, which like the others in the book, has no caption. It appears two paragraphs after the illustration of the tread-wheel (image) in Coldbath Field’s Prison (Chapter 227) but depicts a passage near the opening of Chapter 229, “The Widow,” which describes Eliza Sydney, who at this point in the story has become the “exiled Grand-Duchess of Castelcicala” — a great change, the narrator reminds us, from the cross-dressing Eliza we met at the beginning of the novel.

Bibliography

Reynolds, George W. M. The Mysteries of London. vol 2. London: George Vickers, 1846. Project Gutenberg EBook #51294. Produced by Richard Tonsing, Chuck Greif, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. Web. 3 October 2016.

Last modified 5 October 2016