Header and footer
Henry Matthew Brock
1916
15 x 9.3 cm. (page vignetted); footer 1.5 x 9.3 cm framed.
Dickens's The Holly-tree Inn, pages 3 and 20.
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Passage Realised: “We performed Auld Lang Syne the whole day; seeing nothing, out of towns and villages, but the track of stoats, hares, and foxes, and sometimes of birds. At nine o'clock at night, on a Yorkshire moor, a cheerful burst from our horn, and a welcome sound of talking, with a glimmering and moving about of lanterns, roused me from my drowsy state. I found that we were going to change.
They helped me out, and I said to a waiter, whose bare head became as white as King Lear's in a single minute, "What Inn is this?"
"The Holly-Tree, sir," said he.” [continued below]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Passage realised [continued]
"Upon my word, I believe," said I, apologetically, to the guard and coachman, "that I must stop here."
Now the landlord, and the landlady, and the ostler, and the post-boy, and all the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman, to the wide-eyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, if he meant to go on. The coachman had already replied, "Yes, he'd take her through it," — meaning by Her the coach, — "if o be as George would stand by him." George was the guard, and he had already sworn that he would stand by him. So the helpers were already getting the horses out. — "First Branch — Myself," p. 8.
Commentary
Dickens's The Holly-Tree Inn, originally published in Household Words, Extra Christmas Number, December 1855. "The Guest," "The Boots," and "The Bill," parts one, three, and seven respectively, were by Dickens, the other contributors being his chief collaborator, Wilkie Collins, William Howitt, Adelaide Anne Procter, and Harriet Parr ("Holme Lee"). The colourful front cover, with snow scene of the inn and a carriage, suggests a chronological setting prior to the Railway Age, an impression that the 18th c. costumes of the the ostler and his wife reinforce. In later editions, the book is entitled The Holly-Tree Inn in Three Branches, so that the first part is entitled "The First Branch — Myself," rather than "The Guest." The first footer establishes the exterior of the inn as the coach appropaches; the second footer describes the interior. Throughout the book these two designs alternate, so that, for example, page 4 has the interior and page 5 the exterior design.
Reference List
Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 1998.
Dickens, Charles. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by Edward Dalziel, Harry French, F. A. Fraser, James Mahoney, Townley Green, and Charles Green. The Oxford Illustrated Dickens. Oxford, New York, and Toronto: Oxford U.P., 1956, rpt. 1989.
_______. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by E. A. Abbey. The Household Edition. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876.
_______. Christmas Stories from "Household Words" and "All the Year Round". Illustrated by E. G. Dalziel. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1877.
_______. Christmas Stories from "Household Words" and "All the Year Round". Illustrated by Townley Green, Charles Green, Fred Walker, F. A. Fraser, Harry French, E. G. Dalziel, and J.Mahoney. The Illustrated Library Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1911. Volume 1.
_______. Christmas Stories from "Household Words" and "All the Year Round". Illustrated by E. A. Abbey. The Centenary Edition. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1911.
_______. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. London: Educational Book, 1910. Volume 16.
_______. The Uncommercial Traveller and Additional Christmas Stories. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
Thomas, Deborah A. Dickens and the Short Story. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.
Created 31 January 2016