Marley's Ghost and The Three Spirits
Charles Edmund Brock
1905
16.6 x 10 cm, vignetted
Dickens's A Christmas Carol, illustrated title.
[Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Context of the Illustration
"That is no light part of my penance," pursued the Ghost. "I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."
"You were always a good friend to me," said Scrooge. "Thank 'ee!"
"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by Three Spirits."
Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.
"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?" he demanded, in a faltering voice.
"It is."
"I — I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge.
"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one."
"Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?" hinted Scrooge.
"Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us. [Stave One, "Marley's Ghost," 23]
Commentary
The idea of showing all of Scrooge's spirit "visitors" at once was not entirely novel, but it is unlikely that Brock would have seen the work of the veteran Diamond Edition illustrator Sol Eytinge, Junior in an illustrated Carol published across the Atlantic some four decades earlier. The book's original illustrator, John Leech depicts the celebrated meeting between the inveterate miser and his old partner — in essence, his psychological twin — not as the frontispiece to set the keynote (he assigns that position to Mr. Fezziwig's Ball), but as a visual complement to the text’s description of that meeting, Marley's Ghost (see below). The effect in Brock's ornamented title-page, as in Eytinge's 1868 composite woodblock frontispiece (see below), is surreal since Scrooge encounters these spirits or "geists" seriatim and not all at once, although such is his request, and such is his vow at the conclusion of the novella:
"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirit of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. [Stave Four, "The Last of the Spirits," 92]
Eytinge’s frontispiece conveys a sense of Scrooge's joyful and curious reaction to the multiple visitation as the spirits hover above his bed (a subtle indication that this is all a dream). In contrast, Brock's frontispiece, which places Marley at the center, does not permit one to assess Scrooge's reaction. The Spirit of Christmas Present dominates the composition, occupying its entire right-hand side. He holds aloft a small torch in his right hand as he points downward with his left to the Christmas season’s traditional abundance. The Spirit of Christmas Yet-to-Come, a spectre in a black winding-sheet, also points downward, presumably towards an unseen grave. The smallest spirit, the representative of Scrooge's past, wears a gown decorated with holly and summer flowers. Unlike Brock, Leech did not even attempt to portray thisfusion of youth and age — "like a child: yet not so like a child as an old man" (28). Although Dickens describes the spirit in both masculine and neuter terms, Brock makes its face and form decidedly feminine. Perhaps he wished to imply the softening effect of memory, or perhaps he knew that actresses played this role in dramatic adaptations of A Christmas Carol. Because none of these metaphysical "visitors" appears grim or foreboding, the cramped and uncomfortable Marley appears comic, a satire on the negative effects of cupidity and materialism.
Relevant Illustrations from the 1843 and later Editions
Left: John Leech's interpretation of the ghost and his former partner, Marley's Ghost. Right: Sol Eytinge, the dreamer gazing in wonder at the Spirits of Christmas, Scrooge's Christmas Visitors, frontispiece to the 1868 Ticknor-Fields volume. [Click on images to enlarge them.]
Left: Harry Furniss's composite scene in which a suspicious Scrooge scowls at the wandering spirit, Marley's Ghost (1910). Right: Fred Barnard's equally humorous rendering of the scene, Marley's Ghost (1878).
Above: E. A. Abbey's full-page rendering of the scene as a frontispiece for the entire series of Christmas Books and stories, "What do you want with me?" (1876).
Bibliography
Dickens, Charles. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867.
_____. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1878.
_____. 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. London: Educational Book, 1910.
_____. 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.
_____. A Christmas Carol and The Cricket on the Hearth. Illustrated by C. E. [Charles Edmund] Brock. London: J. M. Dent, 1905; New York: Dutton, rpt., 1963.
_____. A Christmas Carol. Illustrated by Charles Green, R. I. London: A. & F. Pears, 1912.
_____. A Christmas Carol. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. London: William Heinemann, 1915.
_____. A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being A Ghost Story of Christmas. Illustrated by John Leech. (1843). Rpt. in Charles Dickens's Christmas Books, ed. Michael Slater. Hardmondsworth: Penguin, 1971, rpt. 1978.
_____. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by E. A. Abbey. The Household Edition. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876.
Guiliano, Edward, and Philip Collins, eds. The Annotated Dickens. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1986. Vol. 1.
Hearn, Michael Patrick, ed. The Annotated Christmas Carol. New York: Avenel, 1976.
Created 15 September 2015
Last modified 14 March 2020