The Tower of London: 3/41 The Stone Kitchen

Here Cruikshank vividly shows the interior of the Tower of London as he believed it would have appeared in the Tudor era. He depicts a scene full of life and character which contrasts with the wood engraving which is juxtaposed which shows the kitchen in 1840 as a place of emptiness and desolation.

The Tower of London, a novel by William Harrison Ainsworth, was published in 1840. It tells the story of the ill fated Lady Jane Grey who was Queen of England for nine days in 1553, before being executed by Queen Mary.

The novel is illustrated with forty etchings and fifty-eight wood engravings by George Cruikshank. The former depict episodes in the narrative while the latter show architectural aspects of the Tower of London which forms the backdrop to the story. The dark images of the Tower vividly created by Cruikshank cemented its reputation as a place of torture and imprisonment.