John Leech (caricaturist)

John Leech (29 August 1817 – 29 October 1864) was an English caricaturist and illustrator, known for his cartoons published in Punch. He is also noteworthy as the first illustrator of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

Quotes

The dear Girls really must have some new Bonnets, for they cannot possibly wear those nasty, shabby, dirty, old winter things any longer.
- (1849). "The Advent of Spring". Punch XVI.

Cruel Fair One (to silent Partner). "Pray! have you no conversation?"
- "Helping Him On". Pictures of Life and Character: From the Collection of Mr. Punch. Parchment-Paper Series. Volume 6. D. Appleton. 1884. p. 26.

Brown. "So, you're going to marry old Mrs. Yellowboyce. Well, I think you're a dooced lucky fellah!"
Jones. "By Jove, I don't think the luck is all on my side! If she finds money, hang it, I find blood and—haw—beauty!"
- "The Marriage Question". Pictures of Life and Character. p. 59.

Young Diana. "I think, sir, if you would be so good as to go first, and break the top rail, my pony would get over."
- "Rather awkward for Tomkins". Pictures of Life and Character. p. 73.

When between six and seven years of age, some of Leech's drawings were seen by the great Flaxman, and, after carefully looking at them and the boy, he said, 'That boy must be an artist; he will be nothing else or less.' This was said in full consciousness of what is involved in advising such a step. His father wisely, doubtless, thought otherwise, and put him to the medical profession at St. Bartholomew's, under Mr. Stanley. He was very near being sent to Edinburgh, and apprenticed to Sir George Ballingall.
- John Brown, M.D., "John Leech". John Leech, and other papers. Horæ Subsecivæ. Vol. 3 (4th ed.). Edinburgh: David Douglas. 1882. pp. 1–80. (quote from p. 14)

... His stay of nine years at Charterhouse never brought him nearer to the top of the school than the fifth form — the forms being at that time counted downwards, not upwards, as now. He had as a fellow-pupil the famous William Makepeace Thackeray, with whom he formed a friendship that ripened day by day, and never ceased until death parted them. It is said that Leech once had the intense happiness of hearing that when Thackeray was asked to name his dearest friend, he replied, after a few moments' thought, "John Leech."
- Frederick George Kitton, John Leech, Artist and Humourist: A Biographical Sketch. Redway's shilling series (new, revised ed.). London: George Redway. 1884. p. 10.

A man of grave and almost melancholy cast of countenance, handsome withal, was John Leech; quiet, reserved, and gentlemanly in manner, a hearty hater of posing, and noise, and publicity. Save at the weekly dinner, he consorted but little with his colleagues on Punch, with the exception of Thackeray: he was intimate, at one time, with Dickens, to whom he gave a walking-stick inscribed "C. D., from J. L.," which Dickens often carried; with Millais, with Mowbray Morris, and with M. J. Higgins. He and Albert Smith had been fellow medical students at the Middlesex Hospital, fellow assistants to that general practitioner who figures in Ledbury as "Mr. Rawkins,” but in later life there was not much in common between them. I fear Albert was a little too rowdy for Leech.
- Edmund Yates: His Recollections and Experiences. Vol. 2. Richard Bentley & Son. 1884. pp. 150–151.

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John Leech (caricaturist)