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"God bless you, merry gentleman."
Harold Copping
1911
Black-and-white lithograph
16.6 cm by 12.3 cm (6 ½ by 4 ¾ inches), vignetted
From A Christmas Carol (1911), facing p. 18.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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Foggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit’s nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge’s keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of
“God bless you, merry gentleman! May nothing you dismay!”
Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost. ["Stave One: Marley's Ghost," 17]
Whereas previous illustrators, often working within a short program, did not elaborate upon Scrooge's social isolation, Copping contrasts the convivial Cratchits and the solitary Scrooge. Although other illustrators have followed Bob Cratchit sliding down Cornhill and in his counting-house cubicle, Copping alone has expressed interest in the boy attempting to enlist donations for singing Christmas carols by taking up a post outside the front door of Scrooge's office.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being A Ghost Story for Christmas. Illustrated by John Leech. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol in Prose: being a ghost story for Christmas. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1869.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Illustrated by Harold Copping. London, Paris, New, York: Raphael Tuck, 1911.
Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Illustrated by Charles Green, R. I. London: A & F Pears, 1912.
Created 5 October 2023