Red Book

The Red Book is both a ceremonial gift of the House of Lords and, in Gwynplaine’s hands, a private writing surface. Its change of use gives a compact physical form to his reversal: the volume first accompanies his formal entry into the peerage, then carries his farewell to the status and future that entry appeared to secure.

Official Form and Function

The Red Book is described as a little volume bound in red morocco. It contains a list of the peers and commons, along with a few blank leaves and a pencil. The librarian carries it on a square of Flanders leather during the procession for a new member, and its presentation to that member is an established custom. It is thus both a reference book and a token of admission: its printed contents place the recipient among the political classes, while its unused pages leave room for writing.

The red volume appears amid the formal objects of Gwynplaine’s introduction. Two peers sponsor him; officers carry the robes, and the librarian bears the book. At the woolsack the procession stops, and Gwynplaine and his sponsors uncover their heads. Later, an officer puts the peer’s scarlet robe on Gwynplaine and ties the ermine cape at his neck. The librarian then places the Red Book in his waistcoat pocket. The gift enters the ceremony as part of a coordinated display of rank, and the pocketing of it makes the object a personal possession without severing it from the institution that supplied it.

A Ceremony of Admission

The Red Book’s official associations matter because Gwynplaine’s new identity is conveyed through procedures as well as declarations. He is presented to the House in the company of peers, dressed in scarlet and ermine, and furnished with a volume that lists the political body he has joined. The book does not itself establish his inheritance; rather, its place in the ritual makes his acceptance as a peer materially visible. The contrast between its list of established names and its blank leaves also gives it a double character: it records an order already in place and provides space for an entrant’s own mark.

That official role sits within a story where documents repeatedly turn concealed histories into public facts. A message from the wreck of the Matutina reaches shore in a sealed gourd, is opened under the procedures of the Admiralty, and is read as evidence concerning Gwynplaine’s birth. The Red Book belongs to a different documentary setting: it is not evidence in the succession case but an object of parliamentary custom. Together, these objects distinguish two forms of authority in the narrative—proof recovered from a sea-borne message and recognition enacted through the institutions of the House.

The Blank Leaf and the Farewell

On his third sleepless night, feverish and distraught beside the Thames, Gwynplaine begins to remove his clothes before attempting to enter the water. His hand meets the Red Book in his waistcoat pocket. He takes it out, finds the pencil that came with it, and writes on the first blank leaf that he is departing, that his brother, Lord David Dirry-Moir, should take his place, and that he hopes Lord David Dirry-Moir will be happy. He signs the message as Fermain Clancharlie, peer of England.

The inscription turns the book’s blank space against the promise of its presentation. The volume had been given to mark Gwynplaine’s place among the peers; now he uses it to relinquish that place to his brother. His signature preserves the title even as the message gives it away: the speaker identifies himself by the very status from which he is trying to depart. The small book’s contents are not altered, but its function changes from a customary emblem of entry to the support for a personal act of withdrawal.

Its Last Placement

After writing, Gwynplaine takes off his waistcoat and lays it on his coat, then places his hat on top. He opens the Red Book at the written page, sets it in the hat, and puts a stone inside. The arrangement leaves the message exposed among the clothes he has removed, rather than hidden in the volume or retained in his pocket. The object that accompanied his entrance into the House is now positioned with the belongings he leaves at the river’s edge.

The scene does not end with the book’s message carried out as written: as Gwynplaine leans toward the water, a tongue licks his hands. The narrative’s last shown use of the Red Book is therefore not simply as a farewell document, but as part of an interrupted attempt to make departure seem settled. Its route from the librarian’s hands, to Gwynplaine’s pocket, to the open page in his hat makes the reversal concrete. A volume intended to welcome a new peer into a continuing political order becomes the surface on which he tries to surrender his place.