The illustrations that adorn The Moonstone following its long journey across the Pacific go to great lengths to alter the originally unfettered letterpress. The additional elements presented within Harper’s Weekly are not mere scaffolding, but redefine the intent and politics of Collins’ work. The representation of Rosanna Spearman and Ezra Jennings in Harper’s Weekly, when contrasted with their depiction in All The Year Round, goes to great lengths to render them as sympathetic vectors for the American audience—a sympathy that is derived from the erasure of their originally marginalized bodies. The initial letterpress consistently depicts “images of the abnormal body (usually female, impoverished, and impaired) against images of the normal body (usually male, privileged, and able)”, an action that “constitutes an early comment on and a potentially transformative critique of those modern [Victorian] practices […] which in their origin intend to define, designate, medicalize, control, and exclude the body that is physically and cognitively different” (Mossman, 483-4). This work is undone by the normative renderings of Rosanna and Ezra in Harper’s Weekly, which de-emphasize their othered bodies with the intention of creating more sympathetic articulations of each character for their American audience. The erasure of Rosanna and Ezra’s disabled identities is not a consistent effort made across the scope of the American serialization however, a fact that, when contextualized by the specific advertisements at the end of part 23, can be construed as a deeply malodorous manipulation of Collins’ originally discursive intentions.
Works Cited:
Mossman, Mark. “Representations of the Abnormal Body in “The Moonstone.” Victorian Literature and Culture. Vol. 37, No. 2. Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 483-484