"Robin" — an illustration of ‘Verner’s Pride’ by Charles Keene

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[Robin]

Charles Keene

1 November 1862

Wood engraving by Joseph Swain.

5 x 4 inches

Tenth illustration for Mrs Henry Wood’s Verner’s Pride in Once a Week 7 (1 November 1862): 519.

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Mrs Henry Wood (homepage)

Scanned image reproduced from DMV1, code VP010. Text by Simon Cooke.

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One of the strengths of Keene’s series is the way in which it preserves continuity in characterisation. As in J. E. Millais’s illustrations for Anthony Trollope’s novels, which were serialized in The Cornhill Magazine and St Pauls Magazine, Keene’s designs enable the reader/viewer to maintain a clear understanding of the dramatis personae over a period of time, re-focusing attention as the eye roves from one instalment to the next. This is achieved by physical and psychological consistency which helps to fix his or her identity in the mind; put simply, we recognize the characters because their identities are signalled in an unchanging way. Keene’s most successful portrait is the figure of Robin, who appears in three of the scenes and features here in the third of his conversations. It is interesting to note that Keene’s sympathy appears to lie with this yeoman, an approach that adds another dimension to his representation of the working-classes in Punch, where his satire of ‘the ’umble’ is genial rather than cruel.

Last modified 10 May 2014