THE WILLIAMS EDITION OF _A CHRISTMAS CAROL and THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH_ WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR AND LINE BY GEORGE ALFRED WILLIAMS A COMPANION VOLUME TO “MR. PICKWICK’S CHRISTMAS” $2.00 THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO. ..._Publishers_... 33–37 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET, NEW YORK [Illustration: _As brisk as bees, if not altogether as light as fairies, did the four Pickwickians assemble...._ ] MR. PICKWICK’S CHRISTMAS BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE PICKWICKIANS’ CHRISTMAS AT THE MANOR FARM, OF THE ADVENTURES THERE; THE TALE OF THE GOBLIN WHO STOLE A SEXTON, AND OF THE FAMOUS SPORTS ON THE ICE AS WRITTEN IN THE PICKWICK PAPERS BY CHARLES DICKENS WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR AND LINE BY GEORGE ALFRED WILLIAMS [Illustration] THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY Publishers 33–37 EAST SEVENTEENTH STREET (UNION SQUARE NORTH) NEW YORK _Copyright, 1906, by_ THE BAKER & TAYLOR COMPANY Published, September, 1906 [Illustration] _The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass. U.S.A._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTRODUCTION To begin with nothing and end with something as great as Pickwick is an achievement given to few men to realise. Yet it seems that in this most haphazard way Pickwick was created. At the age of twenty-three Charles Dickens opened his door in Furnival’s Inn to the managing partner of the firm of “Chapman and Hall.” The idea then propounded to Dickens was that a monthly publication should be the vehicle for certain plates to be executed by Robert Seymour, an admirable humourist-artist of great popularity. These were to deal with a Nimrod Club and their adventures, fishing, hunting, and so forth, rendered intensely humorous by exposing the lack of experience and dexterity of the members. Dickens was requested to contribute a letter-press to these pictures, but he objected on the grounds that he was not familiar enough with sports or the sportsman’s life to produce such material and also because the idea was not fresh. He thought the results would be much happier if he wrote more freely of the English people and their customs, and, too, it would be infinitely better were the plates to be inspired by the text. The suggestions were accepted and “I then wrote,” says Dickens, “the first number and from the proofsheets Mr. Seymour made the drawing of the Pickwick Club, producing that happy portrait of the founder by which he was made a reality.”