“Evangeline and Missal”

By Little Paris Fine Arts

This illustration is from Page 6 of the book of Henry Longfellow’s epic poem "Evangeline A Tale of Acadie" (London, Bogue, 1850), the first known illustrated version. Jane Eleanor Benham Hay (1829 –1904) was a British painter and illustrator, a virtual pioneer of Victorian female artists. British publisher Henry Richard Vizetelly(1820 – 1894) was the book’s engraver. The image was scanned from an original first edition copy of the book. Part the First, Canto I. “Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of beads and her missal, Wearing her Norman cap and her kirtle of blue, and the ear-rings, Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an heirloom, Handed down from mother to child, through long generations. But a celestial brightness—a more ethereal beauty— Shone on her face and encircled her form, when, after confession, Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction upon her. ” This represents Longfellow’s introduction to Evangeline, as a devout young Catholic woman and the beauty that is her. To many --- an ideal lady, cast in the Romanticism Era of literature on which Evangeline was on the outer cusp when it was first published in 1847. Benham’s monogram mark (“JEB”) is in the lower right corner.