This illustration and its accompanying fictional text are fascinated by effects of light. Here is an extract: ‘The light of a shaded lantern flashed over her the instant she crossed the threshold, dazzling her eyes indeed, yet not so completely but that she made out the figure of a man standing over her shattered jewel-box… Quick as a thought, she said to herself – ‘Come, there is only one! If I can frighten him more than he frightens me, the game is mine.’ […] Maud was aware of the muzzle of a pistol covering her above the dark lantern. […] She could distinguish a dark figure behind the spot of intense light radiating round her own person […]’.
Dalziel after F Wilfred Lawson, ‘Jewels in Danger’, illustration for G J Whyte-Melville, M or N, a serial in the magazine London Society (1869). Dalziel Archive Vol XXV (1869), British Museum reg. no. 1913,0415.186, print no. 98.
By Permission of the Trustees of The British Museum. All Rights Reserved © Sylph Editions, 2016