Revisit a familiar haunt
FIRST EDITIONS OF DICKENS’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL HIGHLIGHT BRILLIANCE OF ILLUSTRATOR JOHN LEECH
HANDS up who hasn’t read Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. If not, I have some worrying news. Catching up on a missed classic could cost you dearly... if you want to read it in a first edition published in 1843.
And if you fancy splashing out on a first edition signed by the author, well, you’d better start saving the book tokens Santa left for you.
Or you could be like Dickens and splash out. Interestingly, despite being in somewhat straitened times following threats from his publishers to reduce his monthly income because of falling sales, he financed publication of the book himself, on the understanding he received a share of the profits.
He insisted the book have lavish bindings, gilt edging, and hand-coloured illustrations and then set the price at a very reasonable five shillings (25 pence).
Despite high sales, profits were low. An initial run of 6,000 published on December 16 sold out by Christmas Eve.
Publishers Chapman & Hall issued second and third editions, which were similarly snapped up by the new year. By 1844, the total number of editions had reached 14. It has never been out of print.
Of that original 6,000, Dickens is known to have given away a fair number, including a group of eight, famously to such lucky recipients as friend and patron Baroness Burdett Coutts, and William Makepeace Thackeray, the novelist hailed by many as Dickens’ equal. The latter once wrote that A Christmas Carol was “a national benefit and to every man or woman who reads it, a personal kindness”.
Another copy was given to Mrs Eliza Touchet, an older cousin of the writer Harrison Ainsworth, who acted as hostess when he was entertaining at his home at Kensal Lodge, near Willesden in the 1830s.
Guests at these boisterous gatherings included John Macrone, who was first to express interest in publishing “Sketches by Boz”, the work that launched Dickens’ brilliant career, the artists Daniel Maclise and George Cruikshank, and distinguished figures such as politicians Benjamin Disraeli and Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
It was the latter who persuaded Dickens to change the ending of “Great Expectations” so that contrary to the original, Pip and Estella Havisham ultimately find happiness together.
The book, dedicated to Mrs Touchet and autographed by Dickens, sold at Christie’s in New York for a then work auction record of $240,000 (then £144,580).
Bringing the story up to date, this month a stash of Dickens’ books, including no fewer than 10 copies of the now rare 1843 first edition of A Christmas Carol, turned up at West Yorkshire auctioneers C. W. Harrison & Son in Ossett.
Sadly they were in generally poor condition, having been stored for a number of years in a garage, their local owner inheriting them from a friend who had told him they had significant value. But each sold for well above their £20-50 presale estimates.
Three copies were the most complete survivors, two selling for £1,300 apiece, one of which is illustrated here, while others in various states of distress fetched between £200 and £1,000, the least expensive lacking its title page and illustrative plates.
Which leads on to the other individual behind this best-selling Victorian morality tale.
While it is Dickens’ first Christmas book and easily his best-known work, illustrator John Leech (1817-1864) is its unsung hero. He provided the memorable illustrations for the hand-coloured steel-engraved plates pictured here.
Cartoonist and caricaturist, Leech, the son of the owner of the London Tavern, a coffee house on Ludgate Hill, might never have adopted the profession had it not been for his skill at producing detailed anatomical drawing.
After boarding school at Charterhouse Leech enrolled at St Bartholomew’s Hospital to study medicine.
Even as a 16-year-old, his tutors there recognised his talent and commissioned him to paint their portraits.
Deciding instead to make a living from his artistic talent, he began producing illustrations for pamphlets and humorous magazines, finally finding fulltime employment with the London Magazine.
After just a year, he was headhunted by the publishers of a new humorous magazine, ‘Punch; or, The London Charivari’, joining the staff from its inception in 1841. He remained for 23 years, producing around 3,000 drawings and 600 cartoons. Leech had an uncanny knack of combining social comedy and pathos with powerful radical political satire, targeting capitalism, anti-semitism and even the Crimea War.
His popular appeal won him many followers who subscribed to the magazine purely to see his latest illustrations.
He also staged a highly successful public exhibition of some of his most memorable Punch cartoons, which were enlarged by machine and coloured by hand by himself, aided by his friend and tutor John Everett Millais.
While still at medical school, Leech had previously been considered, but subsequently rejected, as the illustrator to succeed Robert Seymour, the illustrator of Dickens’ 20 monthly instalments of Pickwick Papers. Seymour committed suicide in 1836.
This time, with both Dickens and Leech in their productive prime, it was no surprise that the author jumped at the chance to commission the artist. If Dickens created Christmas, Leech showed the Victorians what it looked like.
Just in case you really haven’t read A Christmas Carol, it tells the story of miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by the ghost of his deceased business partner Jacob Marley and the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.
The climax comes when Scrooge is shown his own grave and promises to redeem himself.
A visually stunning, star-studded new take on the novel, directed by Peaky Blinders’ creator Stephen Knight, is on BBC iPlayer.