Chapter III: The Illustrations on the Wrapper

Much attention has been given to the illustrations on the wrapper and their significance. So far as I can find, the question was first raised in the _Spectator_. On 1st October 1870, in a review of the first edition of _Edwin Drood_, the _Spectator_ complained that the publishers had not given a facsimile of the vignetted cover. The critic proceeds: ‘By whom was the lamplight discovery of a standing figure, apparently meant for Edwin Drood, in the vignette at the bottom of the page, intended to be made?’ He inquired also whether the man entering with the lanthorn was John Jasper, and what were the directions given by Mr. Dickens as to the ascent of the winding staircase represented on the right hand of the cover. The _Spectator_ asked for any authentic indications which might exist of the turn which Dickens intended to give to the story. ‘Nor can we see how it can be possible that no such indications exist, with this prefiguring cover to prove that he had not only anticipated, but disclosed to some one or other, many of the situations he intended to paint.’ Since then others, and in particular Mr. Andrew Lang, have with much insistency declared that the bottom picture represents a meeting of the risen Edwin Drood with his horror-stricken uncle, John Jasper.

In reply to these questions certain considerations may be adduced:

1. We have already shown from the testimony of Charles Allston Collins, as reported by his widow, and by Sir Luke Fildes, that he, at least, was not aware of any such intention in the mind of Dickens. On the contrary, Madame Perugini and Sir Luke Fildes are convinced that Edwin Drood was murdered. More than this, Charles Dickens the younger, who was more or less in his father’s confidence, agreed with them. As we have noted, he affirmed that his father had told him that Edwin Drood was murdered, and he constructed his play on that basis.

2. I attach much weight to Madame Perugini’s suggestion that whatever her father meant or did not mean, he was certainly not the man to give away on the cover the answer to the mystery. He may have meant—he very probably did—before he began the story to mystify his readers a little. This is shown, I think, by the various suggested titles printed on page 57. But as he rejected those titles, it is plain that he thought them unsatisfactory, and that he refrained from raising in the title at least the question whether the murder of Edwin Drood was accomplished.

3. I had prepared materials for a chapter on the wrappers of Dickens’s novels as used in the monthly parts, but it is not necessary to go into particulars. I am glad to find myself in full agreement with the eminent Dickens scholar, Mr. B W. Matz, who attaches no importance to the covers. I put no trust in the wrapper of _Edwin Drood_ any more than I should in that of _Pickwick_, _Martin Chuzzlewit_, _Little Dorrit_, _Dombey and Son_, and many others, for a suggestion of any intricate points in any of their plots. The only covers which may be reliable in this respect are _A Tale of Two Cities_, _Oliver Twist_, and _Sketches by Boz_. Each of these works was issued in parts after their respective stories had appeared complete in other forms. All the others must have been designed before the first parts were published, and knowing the freedom which Dickens allowed himself we can attach little importance to the evidence of a particular cover as an index to the story.

When Mr. Marcus Stone, R.A., completed his seventy-second year, on 4th July 1912, he was interviewed by a representative of the _Morning Post_, and said:

The cover of _Our Mutual Friend_, with the representation of
different incidents in the story, I drew after seeing an amount of
matter equivalent to no more than the first two one-shilling monthly
parts. Here it is: you will see that I depicted among other
characters, Mr. Silas Wegg. Well, I was aware that Wegg had a wooden
leg, but I wanted to know whether this was his right or his left leg,
as there was nothing in the material before me that threw light on
this point. To my surprise, Dickens said: ‘I do not know. I do not
think I had identified the leg.’ That was the only time I ever knew
him to be at fault on a point of this kind, for as a rule he was
ready to describe down to the minutest details the personal
characteristics, and, I might almost add, the life-history of the
creations of his fancy.

4. But the final proof of the impossibility of making trustworthy deductions from the cover is to be found in the fact that no readers read it in the same way. In proof of this I give the readings of Professor Henry Jackson, Mr. Andrew Lang, Dr. M. R. James, and Mr. Cuming Walters. Through the great kindness of Mr. Hugh Thomson the artist, who has made a study of this subject and has given me his results, I am able to add another interpretation certainly of no lower authority than those which accompany it.

PROFESSOR JACKSON’S READING

We may fairly presume that the figures in the four corners represent
comedy, tragedy, the opium-woman, and the Chinaman. In the nave of
the Cathedral, Edwin and Rosa pair off against Jasper and Crisparkle.
Despite the discrepancy which Mr. Lang points out, I think that the
lower of the two pictures on our left shows Jasper and Rosa in the
garden of the Nuns’ House. In the upper side-piece, the girl is, I
am sure, Rosa flying from Jasper’s pursuit, in full view of a placard
announcing Edwin’s disappearance. It is true that the hatless girl
with her hair streaming down her back does not answer very well to
Dickens’s description of Rosa, and has no resemblance to Sir L.
Fildes’s pictures of her: but if Dickens, when he had not yet thought
out his conception of her personality, told Collins to draw a
frightened girl of seventeen running away from school, no more than
this could be expected. For the scheme of the sketch, compare the
picture in _Bleak House_, which shows Lady Dedlock, as she mounts the
staircase, turning to look at a bill announcing a reward for the
discovery of the murderer of Tulkinghorn. That placards and
advertisements, imploring Edwin to communicate with his uncle, had
been widely circulated, we have been told at p. 182. On the right,
the two men in the lower picture are, I suppose, Jasper and Durdles
ascending the tower on the night of ‘the unaccountable expedition’;
while the man above is Jasper on Christmas Eve looking down at
‘_that_,’ p. 276: ‘Look down, look down! You see what lies at the
bottom there?’ p. 274. I demur to Mr. Lang’s statements that the
young man whom I venture to identify with Jasper is represented as
‘whiskerless,’ and that the figure which I take to be Durdles is
well-dressed.

Professor Jackson then mentions the views of Mr. Proctor and Mr. Lang on the important vignette at the bottom of the page:

For my own part, I suspect that the upright figure represents Drood,
but that the Drood which it represents is a phantom of Jasper’s
imagination. Let us suppose that an advertisement for a ring known
to have been in the possession of the late Edwin Drood appears in the
local newspaper, and that Jasper, now for the first time aware of the
ring’s existence, goes to the crypt to look for it. Dickens might
well suppose him at such a moment to see a vision of the murdered
man, and might instruct Collins to represent what Jasper imagined
himself to see. Indeed, I fancy that I recognise an intentional
contrast between the two figures: the one in the foreground, full of
movement, solidly drawn; the other, in the background, statuesque,
and a little shadowy. Doubtless Dickens was anxious that the reader
should not know too much; and if he made Collins give visible form to
a hallucination of Jasper’s brain, I for one do not think the
procedure illegitimate. It is sad that Dickens did not live to
explain the innocent deception which, as I imagine, he meant for a
few months to practise upon his readers.

MR. ANDREW LANG’S INTERPRETATION IN ‘THE PUZZLE OF DICKENS’S LAST PLOT’

The cover lies before the reader. In the left-hand top corner
appears an allegorical female figure of joy, with flowers. The
central top space contains the front of Cloisterham Cathedral, or
rather, the nave. To the left walks Edwin, with hyacinthine locks,
and a thoroughly classical type of face, and Grecian nose. _Like
Datchery_, _he does not wear_, _but carries his hat_; this means
nothing, if they are in the nave. He seems bored. On his arm is
Rosa; _she_ seems bored; she trails her parasol, and looks away from
Edwin, looks down, to her right. On the spectator’s right march the
surpliced men and boys of the choir. Behind them is Jasper, black
whiskers and all; he stares after Edwin and Rosa; his right hand
hides his mouth. In the corner above him is an allegorical female,
clasping a stiletto.

Beneath Edwin and Rosa is, first, an allegorical female figure,
looking at a placard, headed ‘LOST,’ on a door. Under that again, is
a girl in a garden-chair; a young man, whiskerless, with wavy hair,
kneels and kisses her hand. She looks rather unimpassioned. I
conceive the man to be Landless, taking leave of Rosa after urging
his hopeless suit for which Helena, we learn, ‘seems to compassionate
him.’ He has avowed his passion, early in the story, to Crisparkle.
Below, the opium hag is smoking. On the other side, under the
figures of Jasper and the choir, the young man who kneels to the girl
is seen bounding up a spiral staircase. His left hand is on the iron
railing; he stoops over it, looking down at others who follow him.
His right hand, the index finger protruded, points upward, and, by
chance or design, points straight at Jasper in the vignette above.
Beneath this man (clearly Landless) follows a tall man in a ‘bowler’
hat, a ‘cut-away’ coat, and trousers which show an inch of white
stocking above the low shoes. His profile is hid by the wall of the
spiral staircase: he might be Grewgious of the shoes, white
stockings, and short trousers, but he may be Tartar: he takes two
steps at a stride. Beneath him a youngish man, in a low, soft,
clerical hat and a black pea-coat, ascends, looking downwards and
backwards. This is clearly Crisparkle. A Chinaman is smoking opium
beneath.

In the central lowest space, a dark and whiskered man enters a dark
chamber; his left hand is on the lock of the door; in his right he
holds up a lantern. The light of the lantern reveals a young man in
a soft hat of Tyrolese shape. His features are purely classical, his
nose is Grecian, his locks are long (at least, according to the taste
of to-day); he wears a light paletot, buttoned to the throat; his
right arm hangs by his side; his left hand is thrust into the breast
of his coat. He calmly regards the dark man with the lantern. That
man, of course, is Jasper. The young man is EDWIN DROOD, of the
Grecian nose, hyacinthine locks, and classic features, as in Sir L.
Fildes’s third illustration.

Mr. Proctor correctly understood the unmistakable meaning of this
last design, Jasper entering the vault:

‘To-day the dead are living,
The lost is found to-day.’

DR. JAMES’S VIEW

In the _Cambridge Review_ for 9th March 1911 Dr. James says:

Now, as to the figures at the angles and the scene at the top there
is general agreement. As to those on the left, H. J. is, I think,
right in calling the upper one Rosa’s flight; but the lower one
_cannot_ be Jasper and Rosa. The young man has a moustache. Jasper
had none, and has none in the two pictures of him on this same cover.
Also, the artist has carefully emphasised the fact that the girl is
indifferent to her suitor. The figures, I believe, represent Rosa
and Neville Landless.

On the right, H. J. assumes that there are two scenes. I am clear
that there is but one: for, whereas, on the left side the two scenes
are separated by a sprig of the rose-wreath which surrounds the
centre, and a similar sprig parts them from the top scene, there is
on the right only the division from the top scene, managed in the
same way as on the left. And yet, had the scene been two, there was
great necessity to separate them, inasmuch as they are taking place
in the same surroundings, namely, the winding staircase. As to the
identity of the three men, the lowest one is a cleric, Crisparkle,
the next above him I will not identify; the uppermost is either
Jasper or just possibly (since he is pointing pretty directly at the
figure of Jasper in the top scene, and seems to be acting as a guide
to those below him) Datchery.

Dr. James dissents from Dr. Jackson as to the central vignette at the bottom. No phantom of the imagination is there. We have a real person, as is shown by the fact that he casts a shadow on the wall behind him.

MR. HUGH THOMSON’S READING

Mr. Hugh Thomson wrote the following notes on 3rd April 1912, and they are now printed for the first time:

But to get to the cover to which you particularly directed my
attention. It was designed, I take it, primarily as a decoration,
and not as a series of representations of the characters to appear in
the book. Consequently, there is but little definite
character-drawing in any of the groups with the exception of the one
at the bottom of the page, where Jasper is depicted exactly as I
should wish him depicted, dark and saturnine ‘with thick, lustrous
black hair and whiskers.’ If the other figure is merely a wraith
conjured up by Jasper’s evil opium-soaked conscience, it is as
substantial as one of the ghosts of Hamlet’s father given to us on
the stage time after time without protest. But in a black and white
design for a popular serial it is scarcely possible to be subtle, and
at the same time plainly intelligible. So it may be a ghost, or it
may be Edwin in the flesh, or Neville Landless got up to represent
Edwin. It is a very effective little cut. In the other groups,
Jasper is not so unmistakable, but, of course, in the upper drawings
the sleek, clerical-looking personage with his hand at his mouth is
meant to represent Jasper. The staircase groups, I can’t identify.
The young men in both may be meant to represent Jasper. They are not
in the least like that sombre personage, but just colourless young
men. In the garden scene one cannot think that the kneeling figure
pressing the girl’s fingers to his lips is meant for Jasper at all.
It has a mop of fair hair and boasts a moustache, and in the scene in
the garden of the Nuns’ House Rosa did not permit Jasper to approach
her so nearly. In the picture there is no suggestion of the
repugnance and fear with which she regarded Jasper. Don’t you think
it reasonable to suggest that this little picture illustrates a scene
to take place much later in the book, a scene Dickens did not live to
write? It might be Edwin Drood returned from abroad or from
disguise. Edwin Drood making love to Helena Landless. In chapter
viii. he was ‘already enough impressed by Helena to feel indignant
that Helena’s brother should dispose of him (Edwin) so coolly’ to
Rosebud.

Or could it be Tartar proposing to Rosebud? But Tartar had no
moustache either as himself or as Datchery, and the girl’s figure has
a suggestion of lithe dignity which I don’t associate with the
‘little beauty’ Rosebud.

I agree with the author of _About Edwin Drood_ that Edwin was not
worth while bringing back, but it is possible that he was to return,
and that this is he in the garden scene. In the space above this the
female figure scanning a placard ‘LOST’ is, I think, merely
allegorical, and not meant to represent Rosebud fleeing from Jasper.
In the book she leaves Cloisterham so neat and pretty that Joe, the
omnibus man, would have liked to keep for himself the love she sent
to Miss Twinkleton.

MR. CUMING WALTERS’S READING

There is another view to which I strongly incline, first stated by Mr. Cuming Walters. I take the erect figure in the bottom vignette to be Datchery. It is not Edwin. The large hat and the tightish surtout are the articles of clothing on which Dickens lays stress in his description of Datchery. Mr. Lang says that the figure is that of a young man in a longish loose greatcoat, not a tightish surtout such as Datchery wore, but I agree with Mr. Cuming Walters that the figure corresponds with the description of Datchery. Edwin as seen above with Rosa in the cathedral is not wearing a coat of this sort. His hat also is different. On examining the figure Mr. H. B. Irving said to me: ‘That looks uncommonly like a woman in disguise.’

None of us has a right to dogmatise, but the variety of opinions among those who have studied the cover shows that no certain conclusion can be drawn from the illustrations. The arguments advanced previously tend to make this practically certain. In the discussion of the problem a wholly disproportionate weight has been laid on the illustrated cover. It would hardly bear that weight even if every one were agreed as to the reading of the pictures, and there is no such agreement.