Stamps!

Here's a recent set of stamps issued by Isle of Man in November 2020 to commemorate the 150 anniversary of the death of Charles Dickens: 

Can't go wrong with the original John Leech illustrations!

Japanese!

This Japanese edition published in 1999 by Shinchosha has an interesting cover:

That 's a mischievous Ghost of Christmas Past leading Scrooge. I guess the toys represent Scrooge's childhood?

I'm sure some foreign language editions use illustration from other editions, but I haven't seen this cover art elsewhere.

More Italian!

This Italian edition also has an interesting cover:

Oh, and I think I'd go with Julius LaRosa. Less shtick!

Smoking Bishop!

Here's one of innumerable cheap (I think one shilling was cheap!) editions of "A Christmas Carol" from the 1800s:

I'm presuming it's a knock-off, but it's pretty brazen, even using one of John Leech's illustrations on the cover!

One thing I always thought was interesting about that particular image is that the scene depicted is not actually in the book.

Scrooge tells Bob that they'll discuss his affairs over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, which is what they seem to be doing here, but it hadn't happened yet in the book.

And I've always wondered what Scrooge is supposed to be wearing here!

Happy Labor Day!

 

More Spanish!

A lot of editions translated into other languages have fun covers, such as this one:

I think that's pretty cool! Good job, Sergio Mora!

Interestingly, the website where you can buy this book indicates that it contains the original* illustrations by John Leech, which you'd never suspect based on the cover art!

*When I first tried to type the word "original," I was so far off that the spell checker thought I meant "doornail" as in "dead as..." Fun!

Not As Timely!

Here's a more traditional meeting:

It's apparently from 1899, but I'm not sure of the source or artist (Cooke?).