"The Second of The Three Spirits" or "Scrooge's third Visitor"

John Leech

1843

Steel engraving, hand-coloured

12.2 cm x 8.3 cm vignetted

Fifth illustration in A Christmas Carol (London: Chapman and Hall, 1843), facing p. 78.

The fifth illustration is John Leech's introduction to literature of that "pre-Father Christmas" figure, the Spirit of Christmas Present, not quite sitting on a "couch" or "kind of throne" (77), but decidedly "a jolly Giant, glorious to see; who [bears] a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn" (77). [Commentary continued below.]

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

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