The elderberry is "the Englishman's grape" and can be used to make a rich, fruity wine. In Victorian era winters, hot elder wine was sold from stands in the street. It could also be served indoors, as it was quite generously in Charles Dickens's The Pickwick Papers (1836). This doesn't quite explain why Ronald Searle chose to depict a hot elder wine stand in his cover illustration for Dickens's classic A Christmas Carol (1843, 1961). It's a great period detail, but not one that specifically occurs in the story. So why is it here on the front of the dust jacket?
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| A Christmas Carol (1961) Ronald Searle Scan by Tom Bloom |
An 1842 drawing by George Scharff shows a hot elder wine stand in Holborne. Is it possible this could have been Searle's source material? If so, Searle's version certainly isn't a slavish copy.
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| Hot elder wine stand seen in Holborne, detail, winter 1842 George Scharff |
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| Street Seller of Hot Elder Wine Wedgwood, 1986 John Finnie |
Then again, perhaps it's just an incidental detail that happened to receive unusual cover prominence in the wraparound art. Searle's full spread is meant to emphasize Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim and likely was designed as interior art later forced into double duty as a cover illustration.
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| https://ronaldsearle.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-dickens.html |
Note: My thanks to Tom Bloom for providing the scan of the book cover which got me started on this subject. This is his fifteenth contribution to Attempted Bloggery.
Matt Jones's 2008 post called "More Dickens" includes much or even all the art from Searle's A Christmas Carol and may be seen here.
This year is Ronald Searle's centenary. I don't suppose I've mentioned that before.
At this point, we might as well go out singing:
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