A few years after Uncle Toby, Julian Brazelton was back with a few more illustrations of scenes from "A Christmas Carol," this time for an edition published by Pocket Books in 1939.
This was among the first wave of the new-fangled paperback books published by Pocket Books through Simon and Schuster. They kind of caught on, didn't they?
Anyway, this edition of "A Christmas Carol" has just a handful of illustrations by Julian Brazelton, done in his typically appealing style:
"Uncle Toby's Christmas Book for All the Family" from 1936 is an interesting book. It really does cram a lot of stuff in there in addition to the condensed version of "A Christmas Carol."
Also included is another Dickens work, "Mr. Pickwick's Christmas." Julian Brazelton's drawing for this gives us an easily recognizable Mr. Pickwick, yet still reflecting his own distinctive style.
I like Brazelton's art throughout the book quite a bit. It has kind of a "vintage" look that very evocative of the 1930s and 1940s.
A later issue.
I would have thought that I could find lots of examples of his work online, but not so much. I actually couldn't find much about him at all, but I presume he's the same Julian Brazelton who was editor of "The Texas Ranger" humor magazine from the University if Texas (Austin) in 1924. He's got a Texas sounding name for sure!
One of the other stories from "Uncle Toby" that's worth a mention is "December 25, 1914," an account of the unofficial ceasefire that soldiers on the battlefield observed amongst themselves and the enemy.
An interesting piece of history, which singer-songwriter John McCutcheon visited in this great track from 1984:
Did Ronald Colman, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains or Herbert Marshall experience this at all?
