Brownhills Pottery ABC plates and transmedia Crusoe

Offering the first text- and media-analytical study of the set of Robinson Crusoe ABC plates the Staffordshire Brownhills Pottery produced in the late Victorian period, this article will trace the transmedial use of transfer-printed illustrations for the literacy-formational purpose of these ceramic objects. It will discuss the plates’ uses of two previously identified illustrations that Sir John Gilbert had produced for Nelson & Sons’ 1860 edition of Robinson Crusoe and identify the sources of the designs for other plates in the set, specifically three die cuts and another illustration. The greater part of the article will examine the transmedial adaptation, including the altering, of the illustrations. It will study how the Brownhills plates generated a multi-medial version of Robinson Crusoe that, in significant ways, departed from the reading protocols of the original image material and how the meanings of the designs on the plates were shaped by their new material modality and media environment.