I hope you are all enjoying the Christmas break and managing to fit in a spot of reading in between dealing with the left-over turkey and stuffing. Here on The Landing we’ve been revisiting the old favourites, one of which is Dickens‘ A Christmas Carol (1843). I’ve been reading this aloud (but not, alas, in a very Dickensian manner) over the last couple of evenings. Last year we all went to see Clive Francis performing his one man show of A Christmas Carol at the Mill Theatre in Dundrum, Dublin. While I can’t hope to emulate that fine version of the story, I have enjoyed our own reading of Scrooge’s Christmas journey towards a kinder, more generous life. And I still find Mr Fezziwig’s jolly party to be one of my most favourite episodes in Scrooge’s history.
Searle’s take on Dickens
Last Christmas I featured Dickens’ A Christmas Tree in my Advent series so it’s about time his most famous story got a look in here. This edition of A Christmas Carol contains illustrations by the wonderful Ronald Searle and was first published by Perpetua Books in 1960. I can’t remember when I acquired it, suffice to say it was several years ago when I was living in Birmingham. According to the title page, the book used to belong to a family from Moseley; now it seems to be quite settled on The Landing in Dublin.
I would like to give you more of Searle’s illustrations, but I’ll have to content myself with scanning in the back cover for the present. You’d be hard pressed to find a better impression of Bob and Tiny Tim anywhere in print. And how else should the back cover be decorated except with a picture of Tiny Tim ‘who did NOT die’ and to whom Scrooge ’became a second father’?
A jolly way to end…
Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas from The Landing Book Shelves!
