I found it interesting how disparate Leech's illustrations for A Christmas Carol are (so much so that I assumed they were done by different artists upon first reading it) in terms of style, method, and tone. Stylistically, the illustrations range (depending on tone, it seems) from particularly caricature-esque and cartoony to more Gothic and realist -- "Mr. Fezziwig's Ball" and "Scrooge's Third Visitor" examples of the former style, and "Last of the Spirits" and the woodcut from the second stave examples of the latter stlye. Methodically, the mix of steel-engraving and wood-engraving illustrations in a single work is interesting to me; I wonder how often in this era different methods were used for one book. The different methods seem to compliment the disparate styles and tones as well, as the steel-engraving method facillitates the lighter, caricature style illustrations while the wood-cuts facillitate the darker, realist illustrations. Tonally, the diversity obviously reflects the tonal shifts in the plot of the novella itself, but I think these shifts are more stark when brought to life through the illustrations. Personally I think Dickens does an awkward job balancing these shifts in such a short work; it often feels like one extreme to the next very suddenly. I wonder how much of this impression is derived from the illustrations though, and whether I'd feel the same way if I had just read the text on its own.