Bob Cratchit
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Robert "Bob" Cratchit is a fictional character in the Charles Dickens 1843 novel A Christmas Carol. The overworked, underpaid clerk of Ebenezer Scrooge, Cratchit has come to symbolise the poor working conditions, especially long working hours and low pay, endured by many working-class people in the early Victorian era.
Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim as depicted in the 1870s by Fred Barnard
A Christmas Carol
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A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. It recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. In the process, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.
First edition cover (1843)
"Marley's Ghost", original illustration by John Leech from the 1843 edition
Scrooge and Bob Cratchit celebrate Christmas in an illustration from stave five of the original edition, 1843.
Dickens at the blacking warehouse, as envisioned by Fred Barnard