Arthur Rackham: Mrs. Cratchit Brings in the Christmas Pudding

In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

—Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol

An original book illustration by Arthur Rackham for the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol is currently offered for sale. The drawing shows a proud Mrs. Cratchit bringing in the Christmas pudding. She leans forward slightly, toward the pudding. The image was reversed for its 1915 publication, so that the left-facing woman was reproduced as right-facing on the printed page.

Arthur Rackham
AbeBooks listing accessed December 15, 2022

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30203965680&searchurl=kn%3DChristmas%2Bcard%26sortby%3D1&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp2-_-title5

The cover of the American edition

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/465278205237171436/

With the Pudding

https://twonerdyhistorygirls.blogspot.com/2017/12/dickens-and-cratchit-familys-christmas.html

An earlier illustration of the scene by Frederick Simpson Coburn is from the 1900 edition published by G. P. Putnam's Sons:

https://archive.org/details/christmascarol00dick2/page/91/mode/1up?view=theater

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Ronald Searle: Scrooge Dancing

Today Scott Burns shares with us an original drawing by Ronald Searle. He reports picking it up at "a flea market about 40 years ago for $75." Sweet deal. The artwork measures 13” x 18” and is executed in pen and ink. It depicts a dancing Ebenezer Scrooge and it most likely is an early concept drawing stemming from Searle's work on the titles for the 1970 musical feature "Scrooge." It does not appear to have been drawn on the set or, for that matter, published.

Photo by Scott Burns

Searle's 1970 sketchbook image from the set depicts Albert Finney in the title role dancing. This is a very different Scrooge and it reflects how the character appeared on screen in the production.

https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/scrooge/

A dancing Scrooge does appear in two of the title illustrations. This one is clearly right out of the sketchbook.

Director of Photography Oswald Morris

https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/scrooge/

Executive producer Alec Guinness himself played the ghost of Jacob Marley in the film.

Executive Producer Alec Guinness

https://www.artofthetitle.com/title/scrooge/

Note:  My thanks to Scott Burns! This is his fourteenth contribution to Attempted Bloggery. Without people like Scott, this blog would be nothing but humbug.

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Ronald Searle: A Christmas Carol and Hot Elder Wine

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?

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.

Hot elder wine stand seen in Holborne, detail, winter 1842
George Scharff

https://janeaustensworld.wordpress.com/tag/elder-wine/

A more refined commercial setup is depicted more recently in John Finnie's 1986 plate for Wedgwood.

Street Seller of Hot Elder Wine
Wedgwood, 1986
John Finnie

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wedgwood-Street-Seller-Sellers-London/dp/B001L2U7IG

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.

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:

"Elderberry Wine" (1972)

By Elton John and Bernie Taupin

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Blog Post No. 3100: Frank Beaven's Dickensian Christmas

It seems my friends all know how to make good use of their scanners, something I seem to be constitutionally unable to learn to do with my own. My good friend Jerome Wrinkle has contributed a superb set of scans of an original Christmas cartoon by Frank Beaven, one of his favorite cartoonists. It was published in the Saturday Evening Post at the end of 1940. He writes:

I have scanned both front and back, the tear sheet I have, and an isolated scan of the published cartoon.

I bought this on eBay. The seller thought it was from 1955 as 55 is scrawled on the front but, of course, that was what he was paid—$55.00. That's why, in those days, a cartoonist needed to hustle to make as many sales as possible to make a living. That meant turning out many, many cartoons each week. And, for the lucky ones, scaring up advertising assignments. Gagwriters were a necessity in order to turn out enough batches each week. Nobody, except Addams and Arno, could make a real living by simply working for the New Yorker.

To which I would add a simple note that even both Addams and Arno took on plenty of illustration and advertising work, and they published some cartoons in magazines other than the New Yorker as well.

"All I want to know is what gave you the idea I wanted

the complete works of Dickens last Christmas?"

Frank Beaven

Original art

The Saturday Evening Post, December 28, 1940, page 64

Scan by Jerome Wrinkle 

Well, I think we can all agree that such a gift is not exactly age-appropriate and therefore the premise of the gag is probably not so believable. But multivolume complete sets of Dickens were sold widely in those days, proud testaments to the owners' literary taste whether they were read or not, and perhaps even if they were given to budding young readers.

Although published seventy-nine years ago, the scenario remains a familiar one. Some period details stand out: the density of the sales staff and the fact that all the customers, even the boy, have hats.

Verso

Scan by Jerome Wrinkle

The published cartoon shows shades of red added in production.

"All I want to know is what gave you the idea I wanted

the complete works of Dickens last Christmas?"

Frank Beaven

The Saturday Evening Post, December 28, 1940, page 64

Scan by Jerome Wrinkle

"All I want to know is what gave you the idea I wanted

the complete works of Dickens last Christmas?"

Frank Beaven

The Saturday Evening Post, December 28, 1940, page 64

Scan by Jerome Wrinkle 

Frank Beaven's 1940 New Jersey home—the address is written on the back of his cartoon—was built either in 1928 or 1930 (Zillow mentions both dates). It is a three-bedroom single-family dwelling. No word on how many works of Dickens it housed.

Frank Beaven's 1940 home today

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/17-Iroquois-Ave-Allendale-NJ-07401/37847011_zpid/

Note:  My thanks to Jerome Wrinkle for his wonderful scans and commentary. This is his ninth contribution to this blog. He notes that the original cartoon shown here is no longer in his possession.

I asked my father about his own complete set of Dickens. He believes a "door-to-door salesman sold it to us when I was a young boy." You would "pay a little bit each week"—or perhaps it was each month. They would drop off a new book and the subscriber would pay there and then. He adds, "I was the only one who read them." So…perhaps the cartoon isn't quite as implausible as I thought!

The Attempted Bloggery Centennial Posts 💯
Blog Post No. 100
Blog Post No. 200:  A Shaggy Dog Story

Blog Post No. 300:  From the Libraries of Searle, Koren, Booth, and Saxon

Blog Post No. 400: The Attempted Bloggery Quiz

Blog Post No. 500:  The Second Attempted Bloggery Quiz

Blog Post No. 600:  What I Do When I'm Not Blogging

Blog Post No. 700:  The Many Hazards of Blogging

Blog Post No. 800:  Think Locally, Blog Globally

Blog Post No. 900:  The Blog I Was Meant to Write

Blog Post No. 1000: Happy New Year, Lurkers and All!

Blog Post No. 1100:  The Power of Google

Blog Post No. 1200:  The Ukrainian Situation

Blog Post No. 1300:  Plus-Sizing the Readership

Blog Post No. 1400:  New Goals for an Old Blogger

Blog Post No. 1500:  The Wisdom of Warren Buffett 

Blog Post No. 1600:  "The Big Bang Theory's" Homage to Charles Addams

Blog Post No. 1700:  The New Yorker Apocrypha

Blog Post No. 1800:  The Wrong Bag

Blog Post No. 1900:  Think Good Thoughts About George Booth at 90

Blog Post No. 2000:  Charles Addams and the Birth of a Rare Book Collector

Blog Post No. 2100:  Eustace Tilley in Leotards

Blog Post No. 2200: Peter Arno Drawings from the Estate of Frank Modell

Blog Post No. 2300: Peter Arno—Not for Attribution

Blog Post No. 2400: Sizzling Platter Chatter

Blog Post No. 2500: E. Simms Campbell in Color—Esquire Cartoons from 1935

Blog Post No. 2600:  Peter Arno—You're Welcome?

Blog Post No. 2700:  Peter Arno and Charlie Chaplin Shipyard Gags

Blog Post No. 2800:  George Price's House Rules

Blog Post No. 2900: My Copies of The Ultimate Cartoon Book of Book Cartoons

Blog Post No. 3000:  The Vatican Museums 2019

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Frank Beaven

Jerome Wrinkle

Charles Dickens

Original Cartoon Art

The Saturday Evening Post

Attempted Bloggery's Giftable Index

03100

Ronald Searle's A Christmas Carol: The Gentlemen Withdrew

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.

—Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Two gentlemen attempt to solicit a donation for the poor from the miser Ebenezer Scrooge. An edition of the classic Dickens Christmas tale with illustrations by Ronald Searle was published in 1961 by Perpetua, the artist's own imprint. The original artwork illustrating the gentlemen leaving the premises of Scrooge and Marley's empty-handed was sold at Christie's South Kensington in 2008.

Ronald Searle, "...The gentlemen withdrew..."
A Christmas Carol, Perpetual Books, 1961, page 17

Christie's South Kensington Sale 5360, Lot 23, July 29, 2008

http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/drawings-watercolors/ronald-william-fordham-searle-a-christmas-carol-5106476-details.aspx?from=searchresults&intObjectID=5106476&sid=3ebd3551-8bc0-4e36-b421-d1103eca7c02

Note:  Perpetua (get it?), the Ronald Searle tribute blog, has a host of Dickensian images by Searle under the title More Dickens. You might want to have a look.

Attempted Bloggery has a few more seasonal posts as well as a number of posts about Ronald Searle.
Go for it! You might want to see some more original book illustrations as well.

01719

Ronald Searle: Preparatory Title Cards for "Scrooge"

In designing the titles for "Scrooge" (1970), selected sketchbook drawings made on the set by Ronald Searle were copied by a lithographic process. From these printed sheets, he could work out the details of coloring and title overlays. A group of preparatory title graphics were sold at Bonhams Knightsbridge for £1,187 in December.

Ronald Searle, Preparatory title cards for "Scrooge" (1970)

Bonhams London, Knightsbridge December 10, 2014, Lot 100

http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/21948/lot/100/

"Scrooge" (1970)

Titles begin at 0:33

Note:  Check out this blog's other posts about Ronald Searle.

See all this and much more on the Ronald Searle Tribute blog's comprehensive post about the "Scrooge" titles.

01407

From Arthur Rackham's A Christmas Carol

This lovely watercolor illustration by Arthur Rackham was reproduced as one of twelve color plates in Rackham's 1915 edition of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. The Ghost of Christmas Past shows Scrooge a domestic scene in which the girl he was going to marry is now a mother. It sold well at Sotheby's for 15,000 GBP including the buyer's premium, although the auction house estimate was a tad higher.

Arthur Rackham, "A Flushed and Boisterous Group,"
A Christmas Carol, 1915

Arthur Rackham, "A Flushed and Boisterous Group," A Christmas Carol, 1915
Sotheby's London Sale L12408, Lot 177, December 12, 2012

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/english-literature-history-l12408/lot.177.html

Arthur Rackham, "A Flushed and Boisterous Group," A Christmas Carol, 1915

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