"Postlethwaite Punished" — Fifth uncaptioned headnote vignette by John McLenan for

Wilkie Collins's "The Woman in White" — Harper's Weekly (24 December 1859) (original) (raw)

Jacob Postlethwaite Punished

John McLenan

24 December 1859

9.9 cm high by 4.7 cm wide (3 ⅞ by 1 ⅞ inches), vignetted.

Fifth uncaptioned headnote vignette for Collins's The Woman in White: A Novel (24 December 1859), 821.

[Click on the image to enlarge it.]

The illustration provides comic relief from the romantic anguish of the young drawing-master as the severe schoolmaster makes the chubby, self-pitying pupil "a sturdy, white-headed boy") at the country school near Limmeridge House stand on a stool in disgrace for spreading stories about a ghost at Mrs. Fairlie's grave. When Marian Halcombe questions the boy, Hartright concludes that the "ghost" is in fact "The Woman in White," Anne Catherick. An amusing touch is the "ghost" stick-figure that some arrant schoolboy has drawn on the wall, just to the right of the lachrymose teller of tall tales.

Scanned image and text byPhilip 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 in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.