Merry Christmas

Here is Robert Seymour, as Bob Cratchit, taking a slide down Cornhill on Christmas Eve, undaunted by Scrooge's bad attitude towards the holiday:

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year, to all of you!

Stave 1 : Bob Cratchit in the Tank

Task to come, time permitting : to read the first chapters of The Pickwick Papers, through to the end of the sections completed at the time the illustrator Robert Seymour killed himself on April 20, 1836.  This, because I am curious about the coincidence of Jacob Marley's death occurring seven years before the events in A Christmas Carol and Seymour's committing suicide seven years before Dickens wrote it.  I've modeled Bob Cratchit after a self-portrait by Seymour.  There were problems between Dickens and Seymour over The Pickwick Papers, and Dickens was one of the last people to see Seymour alive.  However, Seymour had some pre-existing mental health problems.  I wonder, did Dickens find himself feeling guilty about Seymour?  See the link below to the Wikipedia article on Seymour for more information.  It's a bit complicated.

Dickens doesn't give much of a physical description for Bob (his most notable feature is his clothing, a white "comforter," or scarf, and "no great-coat"), but Seymour would have been about the right age, based on the number and ages of Bob Cratchit's children.  English law on suicide during that period prevented his wife from inheriting anything from him, leaving Bob Seymour's family probably as badly off as Bob Cratchit's.  Again, please see the Wikipedia article.

And what about Seymour's illustrations for Thomas Hervey's 1835 Book of Christmas - did these have an influence on A Christmas Carol?  I'd be surprised if Dickens hadn't been familiar with it.  So I have another task to come, time permitting : to read all of Hervey's Book of Christmas.

Here are some relevant links :

Wikipedia : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Seymour_(illustrator)

Wikisource : https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Seymour,_Robert_(DNB00)

The Pickwick Papers, from Project Gutenberg : http://www.gutenberg.org/files/580/580-h/580-h.htm

Thomas K. Hervey's Book of Christmas (1835, reprinted 1888) with illustrations by Seymour, also from Project Gutenberg (found via its mention in the above link to Wikisource) : http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42622/42622-h/42622-h.htm

And here is my original sketch of Bob Cratchit, showing both the outlines of his comforter and his entire face :