Dickens's "On 'Change, amongst the merchants" by Harold Copping (1911)

On 'Change, amongst the merchants (page 97) — Harold Copping's study of the five capitalists or "business men" as they discuss a recent death from among their ranks: in fact, Scrooge's death, in "The Last of the Spirits" in A Christmas Carol (1911). Black-and-white lithography. 3 ¼ by 4 ½ inches (8.5 x 11.4 cm), vignetted. [Click on the images to enlarge it.]

Passage Illustrated: The Captains of Investment on 'Change Note Scrooge's Absence

[Scrooge and his shrouded guide] scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on 'Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often.

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk.

"No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin," I don't know much about it, either way. I only know he's dead."

"When did he die?" inquired another.

"Last night, I believe."

"Why, what was the matter with him?" asked a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. "I thought he'd never die."

"God knows," said the first, with a yawn.

"What has he done with his money?" asked a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.

"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin, yawning again. "Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to me. That's all I know."

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh. [Stave Fourth: "The Third of the Spirits," pp. 96-98]

Commentary: An Overheard Conversation Engages Scrooge's Curiosity

For a change, letterpress and large-scale lithograph coincide in the Copping narrative-pictorial sequence here , so that readers experience word and image simultaneously. Rather than treat his businessmen as caricatures as Fred Barnard had done in the British Household Edition (1878), Copping models each figure distinctively, varying their dress and poses but yet making them all of a type: well-dressed, portly, complacent, and superficial. Having shown us a repentant Scrooge in the opening vignette for the stave, Copping now underscores Dickens's indictment of the blight upon society that the capitalistic system has imposed, implied in Leech's steel-engraving Ignorance and Want (1843). With Scrooge and his Spirit guide, shades of Dante and Virgil in The Inferno of The Divine Comedy, Dickens now takes the reader inside the system, into capitalism's control centre, the very "brain" of the Empire's financial nexus. Copping must complement the callousness of the overheard conversation with the apparently benign and utterly believable middle-aged investors who exchange observations about the unnamed departed.

Previous illustrators of the novella had tried to capture the somewhat anti-Capitalistic sentiment of this scene but had resorted to the distortion of caricature: Sol Eytinge, Junior in the 1868 Ticknor and Fields edition in On 'Change (see below), and Fred Barnard in the 1878 British Household Edition's illustration, This pleasantry was received with a general laugh (see below), for example, both focus on the moment when Scrooge's business associates casually and unemotionally exchange news about the demise of one of their own.

Relevant Illustrations from Other Editions (1867-1912)

Left: Eytinge's interpretation of the scene in which Scrooge overhears his business associates discussing Scrooge's demise at the London Stock Exchange, On "Change (1868). Right: Fred Barnard's interpretation of the same group jocularly conversing about Scrooge's death, This pleasantry was received with a general laugh in the British Household Edition (1878).

Left: Arthur Rackham's more fanciful indictment of the capitalist as sinner, "Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?" (1915). Centre: C. E. Brock's excessively corpulent men of business outside the 'Change: "No," said a great fat man, "I only know he's dead" (1905). Right: Charles Green's less caricatural and more modelled interpretation of the same scene: Scrooge hears of his own death (1912).

Illustrations for A Christmas Carol (1843-1915)

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

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.

Dickens, Mary Angela [Charles Dickens' grand-daughter]. Dickens' Dream Children. London, Paris, New York: Raphael Tuck & Sons, Ltd., 1924.

Matz, B. W., and Kate Perugini; illustrated by Harold Copping. Character Sketches from Dickens. London: Raphael Tuck, 1924. Copy in the Paterson Library, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.

Created 6 October 2023