More Dickens

Back to Charles Dickens for a post. The 'Scrooge' film was released in 1970 & Searle was hired to provide the title artwork no doubt in part due to his illustrated version of the novel published previously in 1961.

(Source)

'At the Fezziwig ball, Mrs. Fezziwig.'







The December 19th, 1960 issue of LIFE Magazine had a special spread promoting the release of the Searle illustrated Christmas Carol.









Searle's version of 'A Christmas Carol' must have been successful because it was swiftly followed by Searle illustrated editions of 'Great Expectations' and 'Oliver Twist' both published in 1962.

Original artwork for the frontispiece of the 1962 edition of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, illustrated by Searle, pen and black ink on artboard, 325 x 235mm. (Evidently a study or working drawing)



SIGNED, INSCRIBED WITH TITLE AND ‘OLIVER TWIST: CHARLES DICKENS’, AND DATED 1965
INSCRIBED WITH PUBLISHING DETAILS ON REVERSE
PEN INK AND MONOCHROME WATERCOLOUR
8 1/2 X 10 INCHES
ILLUSTRATED: EXPLORING LONDON: A SHELL JUNIOR GUIDE, LONDON: EBURY PRESS/GEORGE RAINBIRD, 1965, PAGE 18 ‘HISTORIC LONDON, DICKENS HOUSE’, PAGE 18

Sykes from 'Oliver Twist'.


'Bumble arrayed', The Humour of Dickens, 1952





"Searle . . . found Dickens exhausting to do. 'Ideally Dickens should have no illustrator . . . by tradition he always has . . . Technically the drawings are deliberately fussy and nervous in line - a direct reflection of the exploratory sketches which were made during the second reading of the book and were, so to speak, hot from the 19th-century oven. The limitations were: that the drawings could only be in line and were to be reproduced in a small book on poor quality paper. Which they were."





A COLLECTION OF MATERIAL RELATING TO ILLUSTRATIONS FOR WORKS BY CHARLES DICKENS, COMPRISING:
i) montage of fourteen cuttings of numerous ink sketches for Oliver Twist, Great Expectations and The Humour of Dickens, including Pip and Magwitch, Pumblechook choking on brandy, Miss Havisham, Mr Bumble and Bill Sykes, 555 by 690mm., framed and glazed, some fading; ii) workbook for Great Expectations and Oliver Twist, c.40 pages of autograph notes relating to characters and their appearance, original cloth-backed boards; iii) sketchbook for A Tale of Two Cities, c.35 pages of preliminary ink sketches and autograph notes relating to characters, original cloth-backed board, lacking lower cover; iv) publisher’s galley proofs for The Tale of Two Cities, c.210 leaves, annotated by Searle, some tears and creases, some browning; v) workbook for A Christmas Carol, c.25 pages of autograph notes and a few preliminary sketches, loose leaves disbound; vi) two rough tracings of dust-jackets for Oliver Twist and Great Expectations, with notes in Searle’s hand, ink on acetate, folded; vii) two rough sketches, including pencil rough sketch from Oliver Twist, 284 by 200mm.; viii) copies of A Christmas Carol (Perpetua, 1961), Oliver Twist (Joseph, 1962) and Great Expectations (Joseph, 1962), all 8vo, original cloth, dust-jackets (qty)

THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS magazine dated November 28 1970 - front cover design by RONALD SEARLE.

Rough sketch for 'The Humour of Dickens'