[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> Dickens's A Christmas Carol —> Next]
In the Tank
Sol Eytinge
Wood engraving
12.3 high x 9.5 cm (4 ⅞ by 3 ⅝ inches)
Second full-page Illustration for Dickens's A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas in the Ticknor and Fields (Boston), 1869 edition.
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
[You may use the image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned it and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who was in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would not be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed. [Stave One, "Marley's Ghost"]
Adding to the realism of this textual moment, Eytinge includes the clerk's stove (right), his white scarf ("comforter"), and the flaring candle on his copy desk. In his right hand, Bob carries a poker (with which to stir the coal fire) while keeping his left in his trouser pocket for warmth, having tucked his quill pen for convenience behind his left ear. The walls and floor boards, as one expect of Scrooge's Spartan office apartments, are entirely bare. Regarding Eytinge's study of office clerk Bob Cratchit, one has the impression that he is strives to be cheerful in spite of his less than pleasant working conditions. Instead of describing Scrooge in relation to his clerk, Bob Cratchit, or the overall office interior as Dickens does in the text, Eytinge studies the genial clerk who is trying to keep himself warm in "the tank," giving us something of the curmudgeonly employer's perspective.
Cohen, Jane Rabb. Charles Dickens and his Original Illustrators. Columbus: University of Ohio Press, 1980.
Davis, Paul. The Lives and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge. New Haven: Yale U. P., 1990.
Dickens, Charles. Christmas Books, illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. Vol. X.
_____. Christmas Books, illustrated by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1878. Vol. XVII.
_____. Christmas Books, illustrated by A. A. Dixon. London & Glasgow: Collins' Clear-Type Press, 1906.
_____. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. VIII.
_____. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. The Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book, 1910. Vol. VIII.
_____. A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. Illustrated by John Leech. London: Chapman and Hall, 1843.
_____. A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1868.
_____. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by E. A. Abbey. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876. Vol. III.
Hearne, Michael Patrick, ed. The Annotated Christmas Carol. New York: Avenel, 1989.
Tyrell, T. W. "The 'Marley' Knocker." The Dickensian 20.76 (October 1924): pp. 202-03.
Created 25 December 2010
Last modified 8 January 2026