Candles Gallery

Scene from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, 1843. Artist: John Leech

Scene from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, 1843. The irascible, curmudgeonly Ebenezer Scrooge, sitting alone on Christmas Eve, is visited by the ghost of Marley, his late business partner. The same night he is visited by three more apparitions, the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future, whose revelations cause him to wake on Christmas Day a changed man. He sends a turkey to Bob Cratchit his clerk, thoroughly enjoys the festivities and becomes a kindly, jolly old man. From A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. (London, 1843). This was the first in the series of five Christmas books Dickens published

© Ann Ronan Picture Library / Heritage-Images

Frontispiece and Titlepage for Venus and Tannhauser, 1895. Creator: Aubrey Beardsley

Frontispiece and Titlepage for Venus and Tannhauser, 1895. The story of Venus and Tannhauser, in which is set forth an exact account of the manner of state held by Madam Venus, Goddess and Meretrix, under the famous Horselberg, and containing the adventures of Tannhauser in that place, his repentance, his journeying to Rome, and return to the loving mountain. By Aubrey Beardsley'. Illustration for "Under the Hill", an unfinished erotic novel by Beardsley based on the legend of Tannhauser. The first parts were published in "The Savoy", and later issued in book form by Leonard Smithers. The original manuscript was published in 1907, titled "The Story of Venus and Tannhauser". From "The Best of Beardsley" edited by R. A. Walker, [The Bodley Head, London, 1948]

© Shirley Markham Collection/Heritage Images

Reading the Will, c1780-1825. Creator: Thomas Rowlandson

Reading the Will, c1780-1825. Here is a brilliant example of Rowlandson's genius at capturing human emotions. This scene...becomes a humorous study of variously affected would-be inheritors, as the family lawyer reads the will over the remains of the now forgotten relative. We have the outraged individual...whom the parson is vainly trying to pacify,...the young lady...who has fainted...the eaves-dropper in the background, who looks upon the close relatives grouped around the bewildered widow. In the center, the young and perhaps undeserving principal inheritor, completely ignored by the rest, gives vent to his feelings at sudden good fortune, admired only by his perplexed canine friends'. From "The Watercolour Drawings of Thomas Rowlandson from the Albert H. Wiggin Collection in the Boston Public Library" with commentary by Arthur W. Heintzelman. [Watson-Guptill Publications, Inc., New York, 1947]

© Shirley Markham Collection/Heritage Images