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A Dickens Christmas: A Christmas Carol and Other Stories
Snuggle up next to the fire on a cold winter's night with this collection of several classic holiday stories by the great Charles Dickens, including A Christmas Carol, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Chimes, The Christmas Goblins, The Poor Traveler, and The Holly-Tree, with several illustrations.
297 pages, Paperback
First published December 19, 1843
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About the author
Charles Dickens
12.8k books31.4k followersCharles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.
Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens's creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.
On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day he died at Gad's Hill Place. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." His last words were: "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down.
(from Wikipedia)
Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.
Dickens was regarded as the literary colossus of his age. His 1843 novella, A Christmas Carol, remains popular and continues to inspire adaptations in every artistic genre. Oliver Twist and Great Expectations are also frequently adapted, and, like many of his novels, evoke images of early Victorian London. His 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, set in London and Paris, is his best-known work of historical fiction. Dickens's creative genius has been praised by fellow writers—from Leo Tolstoy to George Orwell and G. K. Chesterton—for its realism, comedy, prose style, unique characterisations, and social criticism. On the other hand, Oscar Wilde, Henry James, and Virginia Woolf complained of a lack of psychological depth, loose writing, and a vein of saccharine sentimentalism. The term Dickensian is used to describe something that is reminiscent of Dickens and his writings, such as poor social conditions or comically repulsive characters.
On 8 June 1870, Dickens suffered another stroke at his home after a full day's work on Edwin Drood. He never regained consciousness, and the next day he died at Gad's Hill Place. Contrary to his wish to be buried at Rochester Cathedral "in an inexpensive, unostentatious, and strictly private manner," he was laid to rest in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey. A printed epitaph circulated at the time of the funeral reads: "To the Memory of Charles Dickens (England's most popular author) who died at his residence, Higham, near Rochester, Kent, 9 June 1870, aged 58 years. He was a sympathiser with the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." His last words were: "On the ground", in response to his sister-in-law Georgina's request that he lie down.
(from Wikipedia)
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December 17, 2024
A Christmas without Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol seems unthinkable, and therefore it’s eminently appropriate that this Penguin Books edition of A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings by Dickens is introduced with the well-known anecdote of how a child in London responded to the news of Dickens’s 1870 passing - by crying out, “Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?” The great British novelist’s influence on how people around the world think about the Christmas holiday remains just as strong today as it was when A Christmas Carol was first published in 1842.
As Michael Slater of the University of London points out in a perceptive foreword, Dickens associated his writings about Christmas with the importance of memory, including the remembrance of loss. Additionally, Dickens achieved the neat trick of linking the holiday with Christian ideals of charity while avoiding any overt expressions of religious ideology that could be mistaken for sectarianism. That recipe for tempered holiday cheer has been charming readers for over 170 years now.
What makes this edition of A Christmas Carol a particularly good Christmas present for any thoughtful reader, and God bless us every one, is the way in which this edition situates A Christmas Carol within the larger context of Dickens’s writings about Christmas generally. The presence of these other writings reminds one that A Christmas Carol was neither the first nor the last time that Charles Dickens wrote about the Christmas holiday.
This Christmas collection proceeds chronologically, and begins with a brief 1835 newspaper sketch titled “Christmas Festivities.” The sketch is relatively general in nature, but looks ahead to A Christmas Carol in Dickens’s assertion that “That man must be a misanthrope indeed in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused – in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened – by the recurrence of Christmas” (p. 1) – a descriptor that could remind many readers of Ebenezer Scrooge.
The story that follows, “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton,” is one that you may already have if you own a copy of Dickens’s first novel, The Pickwick Papers (1837), in which the story appears as Chapter 28. In its depiction of a mean-spirited sexton named Gabriel Grub (good Dickensian name, that) whose abduction by goblins late one Christmas Eve results in dramatic changes to his life and character, one sees a foreshadowing of the basic plotline of A Christmas Carol.
This first of Dickens’s ghost stories of Christmas is followed by what is described as “A Christmas Episode from Master Humphrey’s Clock,” the 1840-41 periodical for which Dickens was author and sole contributor. This concise episode looks ahead to A Christmas Carol in the way it depicts its narrator observing a lone diner in a tavern at Christmas, befriending him, and helping that stricken and lonely soul to move forward from the paralysis of grief with which “His mind was wandering among old Christmas Days” (p. 22).
And then there is A Christmas Carol itself. I have read it a number of times before, but a number of facets of the story stood out to me this time. First is the story’s brevity – 85 pages, in this edition. No wonder some of the “stand-alone” printings of A Christmas Carol have had to resort to expedients such as large type fonts and wide margins in order to extend the story to something seeming more like modern book length.
The story’s brevity has no doubt also contributed to the manner in which generations of filmmakers have been drawn to it; the Internet Movie Database lists over 200 Christmas Carol movies and TV episodes, including versions that feature the Muppets, Mr. Magoo, Mickey Mouse, the Smurfs, Barbie, the Flintstones, Dora the Explorer, Bugs Bunny, and the Jetsons, not to mention Christmas Carol-themed episodes of The Love Boat, Family Ties, and The Six Million Dollar Man. Indeed, it’s amazing that A Christmas Carol has survived all that so-often-uninspired adaptation.
It survives because it’s a great story, one that draws its characters quickly and economically. On my first reading of A Christmas Carol, many years ago, I was not over-optimistic at the story’s beginning, particularly when the narrator requires the whole first paragraph to inform the reader that Jacob Marley is dead, and the entire second paragraph to expatiate on the possible reasons for the existence of the phrase “dead as a doornail.” But from that point forward, the story moves forward like Yuletide gangbusters.
I find Scrooge to be more human and more believable than the cartoonish caricature of many of the adaptations. One mistake that many readers make is to think of Scrooge as a one-dimensional archetype of greed -- someone we can comfortably distance ourselves from, telling ourselves, "I could never be like that." The film adaptations usually make that mistake, too; as far as I'm concerned, Alastair Sim in the 1951 film adaptation and George C. Scott in the 1984 TV-movie are the only actors who've really gotten the character right. Scrooge is a man who became bitter and emotionally dead only by degrees. His anxiety that "There is nothing on which [the world] is so hard as poverty" (p. 65) has misled him, along a cold and lonely life path. How many of us, if we looked at our lives honestly, might not find ourselves somewhere along that grim continuum?
Consider, in that regard, the scene in which, the evening before his hauntings begin, Scrooge is shown taking some gruel. Film versions of A Christmas Carol conventionally treat that moment as if Scrooge is actually eating gruel for dinner, so that we can be knowing and superior while thinking, “What a cheapskate.” In fact, however, Scrooge has already taken “his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern” (p. 41), and is eating the gruel only because he “had a cold in his head” (p. 43). How many busy businesspeople today, here in this 21st-century Christmas season, took a melancholy dinner in a melancholy tavern last night – think of your least-favorite national chain restaurant, one of those that serve the oddly-coloured mixed drinks – and followed it up at home with their own favorite head-cold remedy, purchased perhaps at CVS or Walgreens? Perhaps there is more of Scrooge in all of us than many of us would care to admit.
Dickens's Christian-humanist ethic is on abundant display throughout A Christmas Carol, and is perhaps displayed most memorably in the scene from Stave One, "Marley's Ghost," when the ghost of Jacob Marley has just informed Scrooge of the impending visits of three Christmas Ghosts, and has then “floated out upon the bleak, dark night” (p. 52). Scrooge, “desperate in his curiosity”, looks out the window, and here is what he sees:
“The air filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.” (p. 52)
I find that passage to be one of the most powerful depictions of hell in all of literature. Dantean portrayals of Hadean cruelty have never done much for me; in such a moral system, the only reason for following the rules is in order to stay out of the cosmic equivalent of a medieval torture chamber or a Nazi death camp. But the idea that one day, our eyes could be opened, truly opened, to the evil we have done and the good we can no longer do? Terrifying. Fundamentally and existentially terrifying.
Dickens scholar Slater’s notes for the story are also helpful. I learned, for example, that when Dickens uses the phrase “the wisdom of our ancestors” early in the story, he is poking fun at Tory phraseology and policies of his time. Similarly, consider the famous moment from Stave Three when the Ghost of Christmas Present opens his green robe to reveal two hideous children. In the quoted passage below, I am boldfacing the passages that most adaptors of the story leave out:
“ ‘They are Man's,’ said the Spirit, looking down upon them. ‘And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!’ cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand toward the city. ‘Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!’’ (p. 94)
As a footnote by Slater helpfully explains, this passage is not simply an all-purpose reminder that ignorance and want are bad things. Rather, the passage provides "A glance at something that always enraged Dickens, the delay in the reform of provisions for public education because of sectarian disputes about the nature of the religious instruction to be provided" (p. 280). This edition of A Christmas Carol is rich in contextual explanations of this kind, all of which help one look at Dickens's classic Christmas novella in new ways.
At the same time, in looking at all these subtle features of the story, I do not want to neglect Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come – all those features that have helped A Christmas Carol to live for generations of readers. It is a great story, pure and simple. And every time we read it, we behold Scrooge's transformation and reclamation, and hope for our own.
The subsequent Christmas stories and tales in this volume show that Dickens continued to return to the Christmas holiday as a subject, if not always with the same degree of success that he achieved in A Christmas Carol. The novella The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain (1848) engages an interesting philosophical concept – that it is our memories of sorrow and loss that make us capable of compassion – but it is neither as concise nor as successful as A Christmas Carol. There is much that is interesting in the story’s account of the chemist Redlaw, who willingly accepts a phantom’s Christmastime offer to relieve him of his sad memories, only to find that in the process he has lost all that is good in his humanity, and that his malady of emotional death spreads to everyone he encounters – but it’s slow-paced and generally grim, like much of Dombey and Son (1848), the novel that Dickens was working on at the same time.
“A Christmas Tree” (1850) is a delightful essay in which Dickens evokes powerfully the way in which the ordinary toys and decorations of Christmastime can be strongly evocative of multiple layers of memory. “What Christmas Is, as We Grow Older” (1851) is a somewhat somber examination of how the meaning of the Christmas holiday changes, in some ways, and remains consistent in others, as people we love go before us, leaving us to observe future Christmases without them. And “The Seven Poor Travellers” (1854) provides a striking look at a Christmastime visit to a hostel in Dickens’s hometown of Rochester, Kent; founded by the bequest of a 16th-century nobleman, the hostel provides one night’s lodging to six poor travelers. Dickens makes himself a seventh of these poor travelers, and arranges a Christmas evening’s entertainment for them.
A Christmas Carol is the centerpiece of these Dickensian Christmas tales, as it should be; but this very fine volume shows where A Christmas Carol came from, and where it fits within Charles Dickens’s literary treatments of the holiday that would forever after be identified with him. I encourage you to make this edition of A Christmas Carol a part of your future Christmas celebrations.
As Michael Slater of the University of London points out in a perceptive foreword, Dickens associated his writings about Christmas with the importance of memory, including the remembrance of loss. Additionally, Dickens achieved the neat trick of linking the holiday with Christian ideals of charity while avoiding any overt expressions of religious ideology that could be mistaken for sectarianism. That recipe for tempered holiday cheer has been charming readers for over 170 years now.
What makes this edition of A Christmas Carol a particularly good Christmas present for any thoughtful reader, and God bless us every one, is the way in which this edition situates A Christmas Carol within the larger context of Dickens’s writings about Christmas generally. The presence of these other writings reminds one that A Christmas Carol was neither the first nor the last time that Charles Dickens wrote about the Christmas holiday.
This Christmas collection proceeds chronologically, and begins with a brief 1835 newspaper sketch titled “Christmas Festivities.” The sketch is relatively general in nature, but looks ahead to A Christmas Carol in Dickens’s assertion that “That man must be a misanthrope indeed in whose breast something like a jovial feeling is not roused – in whose mind some pleasant associations are not awakened – by the recurrence of Christmas” (p. 1) – a descriptor that could remind many readers of Ebenezer Scrooge.
The story that follows, “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton,” is one that you may already have if you own a copy of Dickens’s first novel, The Pickwick Papers (1837), in which the story appears as Chapter 28. In its depiction of a mean-spirited sexton named Gabriel Grub (good Dickensian name, that) whose abduction by goblins late one Christmas Eve results in dramatic changes to his life and character, one sees a foreshadowing of the basic plotline of A Christmas Carol.
This first of Dickens’s ghost stories of Christmas is followed by what is described as “A Christmas Episode from Master Humphrey’s Clock,” the 1840-41 periodical for which Dickens was author and sole contributor. This concise episode looks ahead to A Christmas Carol in the way it depicts its narrator observing a lone diner in a tavern at Christmas, befriending him, and helping that stricken and lonely soul to move forward from the paralysis of grief with which “His mind was wandering among old Christmas Days” (p. 22).
And then there is A Christmas Carol itself. I have read it a number of times before, but a number of facets of the story stood out to me this time. First is the story’s brevity – 85 pages, in this edition. No wonder some of the “stand-alone” printings of A Christmas Carol have had to resort to expedients such as large type fonts and wide margins in order to extend the story to something seeming more like modern book length.
The story’s brevity has no doubt also contributed to the manner in which generations of filmmakers have been drawn to it; the Internet Movie Database lists over 200 Christmas Carol movies and TV episodes, including versions that feature the Muppets, Mr. Magoo, Mickey Mouse, the Smurfs, Barbie, the Flintstones, Dora the Explorer, Bugs Bunny, and the Jetsons, not to mention Christmas Carol-themed episodes of The Love Boat, Family Ties, and The Six Million Dollar Man. Indeed, it’s amazing that A Christmas Carol has survived all that so-often-uninspired adaptation.
It survives because it’s a great story, one that draws its characters quickly and economically. On my first reading of A Christmas Carol, many years ago, I was not over-optimistic at the story’s beginning, particularly when the narrator requires the whole first paragraph to inform the reader that Jacob Marley is dead, and the entire second paragraph to expatiate on the possible reasons for the existence of the phrase “dead as a doornail.” But from that point forward, the story moves forward like Yuletide gangbusters.
I find Scrooge to be more human and more believable than the cartoonish caricature of many of the adaptations. One mistake that many readers make is to think of Scrooge as a one-dimensional archetype of greed -- someone we can comfortably distance ourselves from, telling ourselves, "I could never be like that." The film adaptations usually make that mistake, too; as far as I'm concerned, Alastair Sim in the 1951 film adaptation and George C. Scott in the 1984 TV-movie are the only actors who've really gotten the character right. Scrooge is a man who became bitter and emotionally dead only by degrees. His anxiety that "There is nothing on which [the world] is so hard as poverty" (p. 65) has misled him, along a cold and lonely life path. How many of us, if we looked at our lives honestly, might not find ourselves somewhere along that grim continuum?
Consider, in that regard, the scene in which, the evening before his hauntings begin, Scrooge is shown taking some gruel. Film versions of A Christmas Carol conventionally treat that moment as if Scrooge is actually eating gruel for dinner, so that we can be knowing and superior while thinking, “What a cheapskate.” In fact, however, Scrooge has already taken “his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern” (p. 41), and is eating the gruel only because he “had a cold in his head” (p. 43). How many busy businesspeople today, here in this 21st-century Christmas season, took a melancholy dinner in a melancholy tavern last night – think of your least-favorite national chain restaurant, one of those that serve the oddly-coloured mixed drinks – and followed it up at home with their own favorite head-cold remedy, purchased perhaps at CVS or Walgreens? Perhaps there is more of Scrooge in all of us than many of us would care to admit.
Dickens's Christian-humanist ethic is on abundant display throughout A Christmas Carol, and is perhaps displayed most memorably in the scene from Stave One, "Marley's Ghost," when the ghost of Jacob Marley has just informed Scrooge of the impending visits of three Christmas Ghosts, and has then “floated out upon the bleak, dark night” (p. 52). Scrooge, “desperate in his curiosity”, looks out the window, and here is what he sees:
“The air filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.” (p. 52)
I find that passage to be one of the most powerful depictions of hell in all of literature. Dantean portrayals of Hadean cruelty have never done much for me; in such a moral system, the only reason for following the rules is in order to stay out of the cosmic equivalent of a medieval torture chamber or a Nazi death camp. But the idea that one day, our eyes could be opened, truly opened, to the evil we have done and the good we can no longer do? Terrifying. Fundamentally and existentially terrifying.
Dickens scholar Slater’s notes for the story are also helpful. I learned, for example, that when Dickens uses the phrase “the wisdom of our ancestors” early in the story, he is poking fun at Tory phraseology and policies of his time. Similarly, consider the famous moment from Stave Three when the Ghost of Christmas Present opens his green robe to reveal two hideous children. In the quoted passage below, I am boldfacing the passages that most adaptors of the story leave out:
“ ‘They are Man's,’ said the Spirit, looking down upon them. ‘And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!’ cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand toward the city. ‘Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!’’ (p. 94)
As a footnote by Slater helpfully explains, this passage is not simply an all-purpose reminder that ignorance and want are bad things. Rather, the passage provides "A glance at something that always enraged Dickens, the delay in the reform of provisions for public education because of sectarian disputes about the nature of the religious instruction to be provided" (p. 280). This edition of A Christmas Carol is rich in contextual explanations of this kind, all of which help one look at Dickens's classic Christmas novella in new ways.
At the same time, in looking at all these subtle features of the story, I do not want to neglect Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come – all those features that have helped A Christmas Carol to live for generations of readers. It is a great story, pure and simple. And every time we read it, we behold Scrooge's transformation and reclamation, and hope for our own.
The subsequent Christmas stories and tales in this volume show that Dickens continued to return to the Christmas holiday as a subject, if not always with the same degree of success that he achieved in A Christmas Carol. The novella The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain (1848) engages an interesting philosophical concept – that it is our memories of sorrow and loss that make us capable of compassion – but it is neither as concise nor as successful as A Christmas Carol. There is much that is interesting in the story’s account of the chemist Redlaw, who willingly accepts a phantom’s Christmastime offer to relieve him of his sad memories, only to find that in the process he has lost all that is good in his humanity, and that his malady of emotional death spreads to everyone he encounters – but it’s slow-paced and generally grim, like much of Dombey and Son (1848), the novel that Dickens was working on at the same time.
“A Christmas Tree” (1850) is a delightful essay in which Dickens evokes powerfully the way in which the ordinary toys and decorations of Christmastime can be strongly evocative of multiple layers of memory. “What Christmas Is, as We Grow Older” (1851) is a somewhat somber examination of how the meaning of the Christmas holiday changes, in some ways, and remains consistent in others, as people we love go before us, leaving us to observe future Christmases without them. And “The Seven Poor Travellers” (1854) provides a striking look at a Christmastime visit to a hostel in Dickens’s hometown of Rochester, Kent; founded by the bequest of a 16th-century nobleman, the hostel provides one night’s lodging to six poor travelers. Dickens makes himself a seventh of these poor travelers, and arranges a Christmas evening’s entertainment for them.
A Christmas Carol is the centerpiece of these Dickensian Christmas tales, as it should be; but this very fine volume shows where A Christmas Carol came from, and where it fits within Charles Dickens’s literary treatments of the holiday that would forever after be identified with him. I encourage you to make this edition of A Christmas Carol a part of your future Christmas celebrations.
December 17, 2018
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I might have not profited, I dare say…Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round…as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And there, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
- Nephew Fred in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
As near as I can tell, A Christmas Carol is perfect. It embodies, in a very real way, Christmas itself.
Charles Dickens is justly famous for his big, sprawling, shaggy-dog serials, in which he spun intricate and twisty tales with the loquaciousness of a man being paid by the word. They are filled with dozens of characters, all of them lovingly observed, most with a laundry list of quirks. They are filled with ups and downs and more ups and more downs. They are seemingly designed to avoid reaching any sort of conclusion. Indeed, many of his epics, such as Bleak House and Great Expectations, have an ad hoc feel to them, as though Dickens himself was as uncertain of his ending as the reader.
Not so with A Christmas Carol.
A Christmas Carol is short, efficient, and tightly focused. It has a natural symmetry and a wonderful simplicity, with just a handful of characters and an all-time killer hook: greedy old miser Ebenezer Scrooge is visited, upon Christmas Eve, by four apparitions (Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come) who teach him a powerful lesson about the meaning of the day.
This is a book with a message, a thesis statement, yet it entertains while it preaches.
The visit from his long-deceased partner Jacob Marley (“dead these seven years”), sets out the parameters of the story: that three other ghosts will visit Scrooge to teach him the meaning of Christmas, and by extension, how to live a better life all the year long. The first meeting of man and ghost, a seriocomic scene set in Scrooge’s bedchambers, is classic Dickens, and manages to balance pedantry with humor (by way of some un-improvable dialogue).
After Jacob’s departure, Scrooge repairs to his bed, to await the other ghosts. First is the Ghost of Christmas Past (“Long past?” “Your past”),who transports Scrooge to his childhood, where we learn of Scrooge’s strained relationship with his father, his close relationship with his sister, and the lost love of his life, a woman named Belle, who Scrooge forsook for money. The scenes with the Ghost of Christmas Past have always been my favorite, because they toy with the very foundations upon which Christmas is built: a slightly melancholic nostalgia for the way things were, or how we remembered them to be.
Next, the Ghost of Christmas Present arrives. He presents as a jolly man, but the longer we spend time with him – meeting Scrooge’s clerk, Bob Cratchit, and his crippled son, Tiny Tim; looking in on the Christmas party of Scrooge’s nephew, Fred – the more of a dark pedagogue he becomes. By the time Christmas Present takes his leave, he is lecturing us about Ignorance, Want, and Doom (in many ways, he is the drunk uncle we all know and tolerate).
Finally, there is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, who shows Scrooge the misery and death that awaits if he does not change his ways. The silent specter is an oppressive presence, and represents Dickens at his most on-the-nose, banging away at his points with a hammer. Yet, it all sets up exquisitely for a rousing finale.
A Christmas Carol has been adapted hundreds of times. Thousands, if you count local theaters. It is a testament to Dickens’ creation that most of these adaptations hew so closely to the original. There is no need to add, subtract, or tinker.
(On the subject of adaptations, if you ever see me at a Christmas party, I will be happy to explain my theory on how every Christmas movie springs from A Christmas Carol).
This particular volume also includes other Christmas stories and writings by Dickens. Frankly, they barely rate a mention, at least relative to A Christmas Carol. It is hard to be interested in these minor offerings when compared to the alpha dog of all Christmas literary offerings. It’s a bit like having your Bugatti test drive interrupted by some dude who wants you to try his skateboard.
In the spirit of charity, I suppose there is some merit in studying these other stories, if only to compare and contrast them to A Christmas Carol. For instance, in The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton, you see many of the elements (a Christmas humbug, ghosts) that Dickens would later use to better effect. In The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, written post-Carol, Dickens introduces another pedagogic specter. This ghost allows a man named Redlaw to lose all memories of his sufferings and sorrows, with generally bad consequences. This story blatantly attempts to capitalize on the popularity of A Christmas Carol – complete with a lesson! – and unfortunately indulges in Dickens’ weakness for overly-wacky characters.
Dickens has been called “the man who invented Christmas.” Obviously, that is not literally true. And it is not really figuratively true, either. Dickens was, in fact, building on traditions that far predated his classic fable. His bit of genius was to take this holiday and give it transformative power. Not only a day of celebration, but a day of contemplation. Not just a time to think about mulled wine and plum pudding, but to ponder those who are poor, sick, or struggling.
“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” Jo grumbles at the start of Little Women, twenty-six years after the publication of A Christmas Carol. Such is the current state of Christmas. Those Cratchit kids, though, would never think such a thing. They’d never dare utter such a complaint; even the smallest goose was enough to satisfy them.
The values espoused in A Christmas Carol are timeless and meaningful. But it is more than a parable. More than any other book or movie or song or play, A Christmas Carol draws us intimately into the best parts of this yearly celebration.
That is why I have never tired of the story, no matter how many times and in how many ways I have experienced it. I love A Christmas Carol, whether it is in Muppet form, or Magoo form, or George C. Scott form, or Patrick Stewart form, or the original novella, which I read every year. In Scrooge’s rebirth, marked by a turkey as big as a child, and the promise of parties featuring a bowl of smoking bishop and Blind Man’s Bluff, we are given a version of an idealized Christmas: the table is full, family is present, and the children are healthy.
In presenting this idealized Christmas, Dickens manages to capture the importance of memory. When you were young, time started to slow in December, and then stopped completely during that hour-long church service standing between you and your gift-wrapped toys. As you get older, Christmas comes and goes much quicker, and leaves you weighing this year’s festivities (often unfavorably) to all that came before.
Years pass, and the composition of your family changes through addition and subtraction, through birth and death. Coming as it does so near the end of the year, Christmas becomes a transitory signpost. Our Christmas traditions, though, push back against mortality, and place us instead along a continuum. Sure, maybe Grandma is gone, but her ornaments are still on the tree, glittering like they have since World War II. Tradition keeps her alive, and will keep us alive when we are gone.
Dickens used Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come to change Scrooge. Those are also the very elements that we require in our own celebrations: the memories of the past; our friends and family (and some wine) in the present; and the knowledge in the future that this will always exist, even if we are not there to enjoy it.
- Nephew Fred in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
As near as I can tell, A Christmas Carol is perfect. It embodies, in a very real way, Christmas itself.
Charles Dickens is justly famous for his big, sprawling, shaggy-dog serials, in which he spun intricate and twisty tales with the loquaciousness of a man being paid by the word. They are filled with dozens of characters, all of them lovingly observed, most with a laundry list of quirks. They are filled with ups and downs and more ups and more downs. They are seemingly designed to avoid reaching any sort of conclusion. Indeed, many of his epics, such as Bleak House and Great Expectations, have an ad hoc feel to them, as though Dickens himself was as uncertain of his ending as the reader.
Not so with A Christmas Carol.
A Christmas Carol is short, efficient, and tightly focused. It has a natural symmetry and a wonderful simplicity, with just a handful of characters and an all-time killer hook: greedy old miser Ebenezer Scrooge is visited, upon Christmas Eve, by four apparitions (Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come) who teach him a powerful lesson about the meaning of the day.
This is a book with a message, a thesis statement, yet it entertains while it preaches.
The visit from his long-deceased partner Jacob Marley (“dead these seven years”), sets out the parameters of the story: that three other ghosts will visit Scrooge to teach him the meaning of Christmas, and by extension, how to live a better life all the year long. The first meeting of man and ghost, a seriocomic scene set in Scrooge’s bedchambers, is classic Dickens, and manages to balance pedantry with humor (by way of some un-improvable dialogue).
Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before; he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses.
“How now!” said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. “What do you want with me?”
“Much!” – Marley’s voice, no doubt about it.
“Who are you?”
“Ask me who I was.”
“Who were you then?” said Scrooge, raising his voice. “You’re particular, for a shade.”
After Jacob’s departure, Scrooge repairs to his bed, to await the other ghosts. First is the Ghost of Christmas Past (“Long past?” “Your past”),who transports Scrooge to his childhood, where we learn of Scrooge’s strained relationship with his father, his close relationship with his sister, and the lost love of his life, a woman named Belle, who Scrooge forsook for money. The scenes with the Ghost of Christmas Past have always been my favorite, because they toy with the very foundations upon which Christmas is built: a slightly melancholic nostalgia for the way things were, or how we remembered them to be.
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with her brother’s particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow…
Next, the Ghost of Christmas Present arrives. He presents as a jolly man, but the longer we spend time with him – meeting Scrooge’s clerk, Bob Cratchit, and his crippled son, Tiny Tim; looking in on the Christmas party of Scrooge’s nephew, Fred – the more of a dark pedagogue he becomes. By the time Christmas Present takes his leave, he is lecturing us about Ignorance, Want, and Doom (in many ways, he is the drunk uncle we all know and tolerate).
Finally, there is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, who shows Scrooge the misery and death that awaits if he does not change his ways. The silent specter is an oppressive presence, and represents Dickens at his most on-the-nose, banging away at his points with a hammer. Yet, it all sets up exquisitely for a rousing finale.
A Christmas Carol has been adapted hundreds of times. Thousands, if you count local theaters. It is a testament to Dickens’ creation that most of these adaptations hew so closely to the original. There is no need to add, subtract, or tinker.
(On the subject of adaptations, if you ever see me at a Christmas party, I will be happy to explain my theory on how every Christmas movie springs from A Christmas Carol).
This particular volume also includes other Christmas stories and writings by Dickens. Frankly, they barely rate a mention, at least relative to A Christmas Carol. It is hard to be interested in these minor offerings when compared to the alpha dog of all Christmas literary offerings. It’s a bit like having your Bugatti test drive interrupted by some dude who wants you to try his skateboard.
In the spirit of charity, I suppose there is some merit in studying these other stories, if only to compare and contrast them to A Christmas Carol. For instance, in The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton, you see many of the elements (a Christmas humbug, ghosts) that Dickens would later use to better effect. In The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, written post-Carol, Dickens introduces another pedagogic specter. This ghost allows a man named Redlaw to lose all memories of his sufferings and sorrows, with generally bad consequences. This story blatantly attempts to capitalize on the popularity of A Christmas Carol – complete with a lesson! – and unfortunately indulges in Dickens’ weakness for overly-wacky characters.
Dickens has been called “the man who invented Christmas.” Obviously, that is not literally true. And it is not really figuratively true, either. Dickens was, in fact, building on traditions that far predated his classic fable. His bit of genius was to take this holiday and give it transformative power. Not only a day of celebration, but a day of contemplation. Not just a time to think about mulled wine and plum pudding, but to ponder those who are poor, sick, or struggling.
“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” Jo grumbles at the start of Little Women, twenty-six years after the publication of A Christmas Carol. Such is the current state of Christmas. Those Cratchit kids, though, would never think such a thing. They’d never dare utter such a complaint; even the smallest goose was enough to satisfy them.
The values espoused in A Christmas Carol are timeless and meaningful. But it is more than a parable. More than any other book or movie or song or play, A Christmas Carol draws us intimately into the best parts of this yearly celebration.
That is why I have never tired of the story, no matter how many times and in how many ways I have experienced it. I love A Christmas Carol, whether it is in Muppet form, or Magoo form, or George C. Scott form, or Patrick Stewart form, or the original novella, which I read every year. In Scrooge’s rebirth, marked by a turkey as big as a child, and the promise of parties featuring a bowl of smoking bishop and Blind Man’s Bluff, we are given a version of an idealized Christmas: the table is full, family is present, and the children are healthy.
In presenting this idealized Christmas, Dickens manages to capture the importance of memory. When you were young, time started to slow in December, and then stopped completely during that hour-long church service standing between you and your gift-wrapped toys. As you get older, Christmas comes and goes much quicker, and leaves you weighing this year’s festivities (often unfavorably) to all that came before.
Years pass, and the composition of your family changes through addition and subtraction, through birth and death. Coming as it does so near the end of the year, Christmas becomes a transitory signpost. Our Christmas traditions, though, push back against mortality, and place us instead along a continuum. Sure, maybe Grandma is gone, but her ornaments are still on the tree, glittering like they have since World War II. Tradition keeps her alive, and will keep us alive when we are gone.
Dickens used Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come to change Scrooge. Those are also the very elements that we require in our own celebrations: the memories of the past; our friends and family (and some wine) in the present; and the knowledge in the future that this will always exist, even if we are not there to enjoy it.
December 21, 2025
After the introduction to, and before the main tale of A Christmas Carol begins, there are three short stories: Christmas Festivities, The Story Of The Goblins Who Stole A Sexton, and A Christmas Episode From Master Humphrey’s Clock.
The first is about a family’s Christmas, focusing mostly on the dinner.
The second is very much akin to Christmas Carol, as an old (very Scrooge-like) miser called Gabriel Grub is visited, not by spirits but by the King of the Goblins and his associates.
The third is a tale of friendship and combating loneliness around the festive season, as an elderly gentlemen befriends a younger man in a tavern who happens to be deaf. The way their friendship is described by the end is rather quite lovely.
And so begins the age-old tale of Ebenezer Scrooge. Due to the nostalgia and comfort that Dickens’ writing brings with this particular story, I could not rate this collection anything other than five stars. It was my introduction into ghost stories around Christmas time, and now I always link those types of stories to this time of year, even if they aren’t festive based like this one is.
Whether it be via the original text, one of the countless film adaptations or on stage, I always make sure A Christmas Carol is part of my festive season every year.
Scrooge proves that even the most irredeemable people can be changed, enlightened to the error of their ways. Yes, of course it does get very mushy at the end, but that’s what you come to expect reading something based around Christmas.
Picturing The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come as a child always used to frighten me, even seeing it in the Muppets movie did, this ghastly grim reaper type figure. Makes me think of The Spirit Of Dark And Lonely Water (if you get that reference, I applaud you!)
The following tales are The Haunted Man And A Ghost’s Bargain, A Christmas Tree, What Christmas Is, As We Grow Older and The Seven Poor Travellers.
The Haunted Man has quite a slow, very dialogue heavy, start so I always skim read through until it reaches the part where the phantom visits Redlaw. The conversation between them is when the story starts to pick up for me and ends the first chapter on a good note.
Upon finishing it, I realised that I really didn’t take to the characters of the Tetherbys and found them honestly quite tedious.
The conversation between Redlaw and the student in the second chapter was a lot more enjoyable to read. Then as soon as the Tetherbys are the main focus again the in the third chapter, it really nose dives for me again.
The highlighting of archaic, conservative views also make it rather off-putting.
If I didn’t enjoy Christmas Carol so much, this particular Dickens would have caused me to rate this collection overall much lower. On its own, I would rate it 2 stars.
The next few, much shorter, stories/passages are fine. I find What Christmas Is, As We Grow Older to be a very poignant piece of writing about the feeling of loss that Christmastime brings and how we remember those who are no longer with us.
Also, I would give ANYTHING to get that magical feeling of Christmas back that I felt as a child.
In conclusion, I find Dickens’ short stories to be very hit and miss. But A Christmas Carol will always have a very special place in my heart.
The first is about a family’s Christmas, focusing mostly on the dinner.
The second is very much akin to Christmas Carol, as an old (very Scrooge-like) miser called Gabriel Grub is visited, not by spirits but by the King of the Goblins and his associates.
The third is a tale of friendship and combating loneliness around the festive season, as an elderly gentlemen befriends a younger man in a tavern who happens to be deaf. The way their friendship is described by the end is rather quite lovely.
And so begins the age-old tale of Ebenezer Scrooge. Due to the nostalgia and comfort that Dickens’ writing brings with this particular story, I could not rate this collection anything other than five stars. It was my introduction into ghost stories around Christmas time, and now I always link those types of stories to this time of year, even if they aren’t festive based like this one is.
Whether it be via the original text, one of the countless film adaptations or on stage, I always make sure A Christmas Carol is part of my festive season every year.
Scrooge proves that even the most irredeemable people can be changed, enlightened to the error of their ways. Yes, of course it does get very mushy at the end, but that’s what you come to expect reading something based around Christmas.
Picturing The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come as a child always used to frighten me, even seeing it in the Muppets movie did, this ghastly grim reaper type figure. Makes me think of The Spirit Of Dark And Lonely Water (if you get that reference, I applaud you!)
The following tales are The Haunted Man And A Ghost’s Bargain, A Christmas Tree, What Christmas Is, As We Grow Older and The Seven Poor Travellers.
The Haunted Man has quite a slow, very dialogue heavy, start so I always skim read through until it reaches the part where the phantom visits Redlaw. The conversation between them is when the story starts to pick up for me and ends the first chapter on a good note.
Upon finishing it, I realised that I really didn’t take to the characters of the Tetherbys and found them honestly quite tedious.
The conversation between Redlaw and the student in the second chapter was a lot more enjoyable to read. Then as soon as the Tetherbys are the main focus again the in the third chapter, it really nose dives for me again.
The highlighting of archaic, conservative views also make it rather off-putting.
If I didn’t enjoy Christmas Carol so much, this particular Dickens would have caused me to rate this collection overall much lower. On its own, I would rate it 2 stars.
The next few, much shorter, stories/passages are fine. I find What Christmas Is, As We Grow Older to be a very poignant piece of writing about the feeling of loss that Christmastime brings and how we remember those who are no longer with us.
Also, I would give ANYTHING to get that magical feeling of Christmas back that I felt as a child.
In conclusion, I find Dickens’ short stories to be very hit and miss. But A Christmas Carol will always have a very special place in my heart.
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December 16, 2017
[First read: 2010 or thereabouts. 4 stars.
Second read: Christmas 2015. 4 stars.
Third read: Christmas, 2016. 4 stars.]
Ghost stories were the theme of Christmas during Victorian times and it's a tradition that is sorely missed. Charles Dickens is pretty much King of Christmas, and all these stories have a spectral vibe to them. They all contain the same kind of feeling to them, and give us a meaning to Christmas that I think we've let go of a little. Even I of a Scrooge nature feels blessed after I have read these stories, not only because I enjoy all of Dickens' works, but because it gives me faith of a non-religious kind that Humans are pretty much alright, actually.
'Christmas Festivities': Under the pseudonym 'Tibbs', Dickens implores those who are less enchanted by Christmas than they used to be to let it back in to their hearts. Fairly relevant today, but his arguments do not convince me wholly.
'The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton': pre-cursor to A Christmas Carol and is an evocative imaginative short tale. Humble but with a lot to say.
'A Christmas Episode from Master Humphrey's Clock': Just a small segment from this story, which was serialised in several of his other novels, which shows how a kindness done at Christmas time can bring you more joy than you ever really appreciate.
'A Christmas Carol': With a transformation that would make Bumblebee turn green, Scrooge is the epitome of a Christmas junkie: too much and all at once after all those years of refusing. I'm surprised be didn't die of such an overdose of turkey and whooping. Surprisingly shorter than I ever remembered it to be.
'The Haunted Man': Very enjoyable and surprisingly longer than A Christmas Carol, though without the overall worldy blesséd live that emanates from that one: the same kind of feeling and plot, with poor families and various deaths. I think it was perhaps longer than it should have been, though the ending and message was not so bad because of that. A great memory to all the dead and how we should never forget them.
' A Christmas Tree': An odd little story that doesn't quite make sense. A good reference for what a Victorian tree would have been decorated like, but vague and rather tedious altogether.
'What Christmas is, as we Grow Older': quite droll and rather boring in truth, but I think it is a nice insight in to how Dickens thought about a lot of things.
'The Seven Poor Travellers': A condensed version of A Christmas Carol in a way, though not so much Scrooge than someone trying to make themselves feel better by helping others. Fairly archaic in plot and tone, but an ideal sentiment nevertheless.
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Second read: Christmas 2015. 4 stars.
Third read: Christmas, 2016. 4 stars.]
Ghost stories were the theme of Christmas during Victorian times and it's a tradition that is sorely missed. Charles Dickens is pretty much King of Christmas, and all these stories have a spectral vibe to them. They all contain the same kind of feeling to them, and give us a meaning to Christmas that I think we've let go of a little. Even I of a Scrooge nature feels blessed after I have read these stories, not only because I enjoy all of Dickens' works, but because it gives me faith of a non-religious kind that Humans are pretty much alright, actually.
'Christmas Festivities': Under the pseudonym 'Tibbs', Dickens implores those who are less enchanted by Christmas than they used to be to let it back in to their hearts. Fairly relevant today, but his arguments do not convince me wholly.
'The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton': pre-cursor to A Christmas Carol and is an evocative imaginative short tale. Humble but with a lot to say.
'A Christmas Episode from Master Humphrey's Clock': Just a small segment from this story, which was serialised in several of his other novels, which shows how a kindness done at Christmas time can bring you more joy than you ever really appreciate.
'A Christmas Carol': With a transformation that would make Bumblebee turn green, Scrooge is the epitome of a Christmas junkie: too much and all at once after all those years of refusing. I'm surprised be didn't die of such an overdose of turkey and whooping. Surprisingly shorter than I ever remembered it to be.
'The Haunted Man': Very enjoyable and surprisingly longer than A Christmas Carol, though without the overall worldy blesséd live that emanates from that one: the same kind of feeling and plot, with poor families and various deaths. I think it was perhaps longer than it should have been, though the ending and message was not so bad because of that. A great memory to all the dead and how we should never forget them.
' A Christmas Tree': An odd little story that doesn't quite make sense. A good reference for what a Victorian tree would have been decorated like, but vague and rather tedious altogether.
'What Christmas is, as we Grow Older': quite droll and rather boring in truth, but I think it is a nice insight in to how Dickens thought about a lot of things.
'The Seven Poor Travellers': A condensed version of A Christmas Carol in a way, though not so much Scrooge than someone trying to make themselves feel better by helping others. Fairly archaic in plot and tone, but an ideal sentiment nevertheless.
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December 26, 2022
I love A Christmas Carol. Every film adaption from the black and white one to the muppets.
But I have never read the story. So this year I vowed to finally read the original.
Along with a few of Dickens’ other Christmas writings I really enjoyed it.
I won’t bother with a synopsis, as everyone knows the story more or less. It was wonderful to read and be reminded of what makes this such a powerful tale of kindness and generosity to our fellow human at this time of the year.
But I have never read the story. So this year I vowed to finally read the original.
Along with a few of Dickens’ other Christmas writings I really enjoyed it.
I won’t bother with a synopsis, as everyone knows the story more or less. It was wonderful to read and be reminded of what makes this such a powerful tale of kindness and generosity to our fellow human at this time of the year.
December 29, 2017
“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.”
A classic Christmas tale, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserable old man, who is visited by his deceased business partner and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come one Christmas Eve. Their intention is to help Scrooge realise the error in his ways and to help his transform into a better person.
Everyone knows the story of A Christmas Carol – the story has been adapted numerous times and these movies are watched by a lot of people each Christmas. Admittedly, A Christmas Carol was never my favourite Christmas movie, I think I watched it once as a child and just didn’t “get it”. So I thought it was time to read the story instead, and safe to say, I really enjoyed it. I even went on to watch A Muppet’s Christmas Carol after with a renewed interest in it and have a feeling I’ll now revisit it annually.
It’s a great book to get yourself into the Christmas spirit, Dickens really excels at creating that atmosphere and the way you feel around the festive period. Scrooge’s character development and overall tale of redemption is well-executed and he becomes pretty likeable by the end. I love how it really represents what Christmas is all about – showing empathy and generosity and generally trying to be a better human. Well, to be honest, that’s how we should be all year around! But we all know Christmas is the time that people do show extra compassion towards each other. So, yeah, I really enjoyed A Christmas Carol and would give it 4 stars.
Dickens is known for being “wordy”, but thankfully A Christmas Carol does not fall victim to this. However, the same cannot be said for the other stories and essays found within this edition. Oh my godddddd, some of them just went on forever and it felt like Dickens was just babbling about a lot of nonsense. My eyes were glazing over and I sincerely regretted not just buying the novella on its own! Some of the other stories WERE enjoyable though, such as The Story of the Goblins who Stole A Sexton. However, the worst for me was The Haunted Man – actually longer than A Christmas Carol, it had me skimming through parts in sheer boredom. The stories almost felt repetitive at times, as if Dickens was trying to hammer home the same idea over and over again. Some kind of spectral being appears and makes you realise what Christmas is really all about… I got it! So that’s why I’ve rounded down the overall rating to 3 stars.
A classic Christmas tale, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserable old man, who is visited by his deceased business partner and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come one Christmas Eve. Their intention is to help Scrooge realise the error in his ways and to help his transform into a better person.
Everyone knows the story of A Christmas Carol – the story has been adapted numerous times and these movies are watched by a lot of people each Christmas. Admittedly, A Christmas Carol was never my favourite Christmas movie, I think I watched it once as a child and just didn’t “get it”. So I thought it was time to read the story instead, and safe to say, I really enjoyed it. I even went on to watch A Muppet’s Christmas Carol after with a renewed interest in it and have a feeling I’ll now revisit it annually.
It’s a great book to get yourself into the Christmas spirit, Dickens really excels at creating that atmosphere and the way you feel around the festive period. Scrooge’s character development and overall tale of redemption is well-executed and he becomes pretty likeable by the end. I love how it really represents what Christmas is all about – showing empathy and generosity and generally trying to be a better human. Well, to be honest, that’s how we should be all year around! But we all know Christmas is the time that people do show extra compassion towards each other. So, yeah, I really enjoyed A Christmas Carol and would give it 4 stars.
Dickens is known for being “wordy”, but thankfully A Christmas Carol does not fall victim to this. However, the same cannot be said for the other stories and essays found within this edition. Oh my godddddd, some of them just went on forever and it felt like Dickens was just babbling about a lot of nonsense. My eyes were glazing over and I sincerely regretted not just buying the novella on its own! Some of the other stories WERE enjoyable though, such as The Story of the Goblins who Stole A Sexton. However, the worst for me was The Haunted Man – actually longer than A Christmas Carol, it had me skimming through parts in sheer boredom. The stories almost felt repetitive at times, as if Dickens was trying to hammer home the same idea over and over again. Some kind of spectral being appears and makes you realise what Christmas is really all about… I got it! So that’s why I’ve rounded down the overall rating to 3 stars.
December 1, 2021
Another re read of this excellent novella. It's an annual tradition for me which began in 2013.
It delights me everytime.
Merry Christmas everyone 🤓
It delights me everytime.
Merry Christmas everyone 🤓
December 20, 2023
Reread 2023. Hugh Grant narration on audible this year. Although I didn't really like his narration, it wasn't bad. Not my favourite version though.
Annual reread 2022. Every year I try and find a new edition to read or listen to. This year was the audio with Anton Lesser narrating. I enjoyed it, Lesser does a good job of creating different voices for the spirits and Scrooge. Not much else to add really - this has become a yearly tradition that I love.
Annual reread 2021, a Christmas staple. Fun fact: until I read this a few years ago I always thought there were 2 Marleys due to A Muppets Christmas Carol. Thankfully I didn't question the absence of Rizzo the rat in Dickens original.
Annual reread 2022. Every year I try and find a new edition to read or listen to. This year was the audio with Anton Lesser narrating. I enjoyed it, Lesser does a good job of creating different voices for the spirits and Scrooge. Not much else to add really - this has become a yearly tradition that I love.
Annual reread 2021, a Christmas staple. Fun fact: until I read this a few years ago I always thought there were 2 Marleys due to A Muppets Christmas Carol. Thankfully I didn't question the absence of Rizzo the rat in Dickens original.
December 13, 2019
This article on Dickens and Christmas nudged me into re-reading A Christmas Carol. The introduction to this Penguin edition even starts with the same anecdote, about the costermonger's daughter who asked “Mr Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?”
I rarely re-read books, not least because there are too many classics I wish I'd read, and which I haven't yet read once, to launch myself into a project of re-reading. But also because I know that re-reading is more time-consuming both to do and to write about, because it's not just about the book and the current reading experience, but a reconsideration of what I'd previously got out of the story. (This post is, for the moment, just about A Christmas Carol and not the other Christmas Writings. People's appetite for Christmas material is probably already waning on 4th January, and I don't expect to finish this whole collection by Twelfth Night.)
The early pages of A Christmas Carol remained so familiar that I thought it might be basically impossible to review the book. It was simply itself and that's how it was. Goodness knows how many times I'd read them when I was growing up - I'd been given two different editions as presents before the age of ten, and would have opened and browsed them frequently. The only surprises were that some of Scrooge's anti-Christmas rants were genuinely funny, and that he was suffering from a cold throughout proceedings. However, I found it less familiar once I hit Stave Two, and more possible to think about it as I would another book, although every now and again, there were occasional sentences that had resounding familiarity from childhood, because they'd just got into my head, like "who and what are you?" or because they were probably captions to illustrations in other editions.
It was hard to tell whether this is an effect of my own early habituation to the text, or if I was spotting genuine influence at work, but there is a tone here which seems like the essence of British children's writing, especially, though not only, children's fantasy writing, and fantasy stories which aim to have cross-age appeal. Did Dickens essentially invent it? Or did he simply popularise it so that almost everyone since has been influenced via his work? Probably its greatest contemporary exponent is Neil Gaiman - including with that storyteller voice and occasional authorial breaking of the fourth wall that has become connected with the trust many readers have in his public persona (a clause which I feel could be saying equally about Dickens or Gaiman). I don't read much in the way of contemporary children's or YA, but it's also the tone A.L. Kennedy was going for in her Little Prince spin-off, The Little Snake, which I read a few months ago.
Often the sentences seemed astonishingly modern - noticeably more of them would work in contemporary writing than would sentences from, for example, Henry Fielding, written a century earlier. Perhaps this is due to the overwhelming popularity of the Carol which has led a huge readership and reuse, often unwitting, of many of the phrasings. I did not find myself struck by modernity of wording in the same way when I read the less popular Hard Times a couple of years earlier. But just when I was marvelling at all this, of course there would come along some paragraph really quite antiquated and tangled to 21st century ears, showing that this is indeed still a work of 1843.
What never would have occurred to me as a kid is that Scrooge is essentially forced through a rapid course of psychotherapy in order to effect personality change - only he didn't seek it out himself. (Did Freud read much Dickens?) Its transformative outcome in either three days or one, depending how you measure time in the book, is one that promoters of accelerated programmes like the Hoffmann Process can probably only dream of. He is made to examine how the past made him who he is, including a number of painful moments which reawaken a dormant capacity for a variety of emotions; he is shown the adverse effects he has on others, and his separation from what are considered healthy social norms; and then to reinforce it all, just in case his repentance - to use a term from religion that would have been recognisable to early Victorians - is not yet deep and sincere, he is forced to look in the eye the probable future consequences of his current way of life. His response to the final Spirit is basically the idea of psychological integration: "I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future."
The main, intended, message of A Christmas Carol is one of charity, and, ultimately, in tandem with Dickens' other works, the need to improve economic equality. However, I think that alongside this it also ends up showing lavish material consumption (via spending rather than hoarding of money) as a sign of being good-hearted. (Picking out unhelpful influences I absorbed from books and films when I was younger is, for me, an inevitable part of revisiting them. In some cases these influences occurred because I didn't properly understand the wider context or social norms beyond the work, but in the case of A Christmas Carol I think it's something the text in its many forms has actually put into the wider Anglo-American culture. 'Moderation in all things', or lagom to use the Swedish term increasingly fashionable in English, is not what it's about.) Whilst Scrooge is possibly malnourished himself, living on gruel to save money, Scrooge's nephew's house evidently has more than anyone could ever need. Bob Cratchit definitely needed a substantial pay rise and decent heating at work. (Which I think of all the more keenly knowing some of my own ancestors were unhealthy Victorian clerks, and another a milliner like one of the daughters.) But his Christmas dinner sounds very nice as it was - and would he have even been able to cook that giant turkey? Would the local ovens have had space for a thing like that, which would have normally been bought by a wealthy household? Would it have cost them more to cook and delayed neighbours' dinners by taking up communal oven space? I guess in an age of extreme wealth inequality there is lavishness and there is poverty, and Dickens' own life story had a hand in how he showed this. Issues of the later 20th and 21st century - of prevalent commercial and media pressures to overconsume leading to stress and overspending, and of ecological depletion - were certainly not on the radar of the Hungry Forties, when mouthwatering accounts of mountains of food could provide thrills and comfort to poorer readers who were scraping by, much as the Cratchits were. Slater's introduction refers to real letters readers sent to Dickens also saying how much they loved the scene of the family's dinner. Which, it’s interesting to see, includes a Christmas pudding cooked in the laundry copper - would that affect the taste? (I assume the name 'Cratchit' is supposed to have a scraping-by sort of sound and perhaps to echo Tiny Tim's crutch, but its echoes of 'crotchety' and 'crabbit' mean it also sounds ill-natured in a way that emphatically does not suit Bob and his family.)
The abundance of works like this one, showing great positive change in difficult people, can also lead to frustration over the years, as one gradually discovers that, in the reality of adult life, people do not necessarily change and 'grow' as much as would be helpful - but that is hardly peculiar to A Christmas Carol.
However, in terms of evaluating A Christmas Carol by modern mores, I suppose one can't much fault Dickens on healthy eating! Often in the 19th century, meat and carbohydrates were valued over vegetables, which could be seen as a food for the poor. (No sprouts to spoil the Cratchits' dinner!) Yet a paragraph this ecstatic about veg and fruit (Dickens even sexualises it somewhat) could only fit these days into food or travel writing; anywhere else it would sound like a parodic escape from a public health campaign - normally it is cakes and chocolate that are extolled this way:
There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars; and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made in the shopkeepers’ benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner.
The notes in this edition seem very good. There is very little in the way of material so obvious it's patronising, and only a couple of things missed out which could have done with notes: " a twice-turned gown" and " like a bad lobster in a dark cellar" (in 2018 the combination of lobsters and basements made one think of Jordan Peterson fans; goodness knows what greater significance it had in 1843).
Something I keep mulling over more generally about Dickens is how he was, in his day, so effective in his social reform agenda, and so well-loved by readers, whereas fiction doing the same now - not least because he's done it before - easily comes across as either mawkish, or written by and for a particular small audience (which has in the past couple of years come to be called 'liberal elites'). As far as I can work out, reasons for this on a larger scale would have included the reform-mindedness of some 19th century parliaments, the prevalence of some strands of Christianity, and the abundance of cheap energy fuelled industrialisation which required better education and thereby societal participation of workers. Whereas nowadays many people are aggrieved about declining standards of living, making them feel, en masse, less inclined to share, and the economic underpinnings have a different trajectory. (Not that Dickens didn't have opponents, of course. The introduction mentions that the Westminster Review condemned him, in June 1844, for his ignorance of political economy and the ‘laws’ of supply and demand: ‘Who went without turkey and punch in order that Bob Cratchit might get them – for, unless there were turkeys and punch in surplus, some one must go without – is a disagreeable reflection kept wholly out of sight [by Dickens].’ But this was a predictable reaction from Utilitarian extremists. ('Utilitarian extremists' seems somehow an absurd phrase now, if utilitarianism is an abstract idea from introductory philosophy courses, but evidently they were a thing!) Yet although the sight of the poor was surely more familiar to the wealthy of the 18th and 19th century than to their 21st century contemporaries in many western cities, people were shocked by reports on working and living conditions - Earlier in the year [1843] he, like Elizabeth Barrett and many others, had been appalled by the brutal revelations of the Second Report (Trades and Manufactures) of the Children’s Employment Commission set up by Parliament.. Were many shocked this way, or were plenty of others inured? There was evidently some shift of ideas and sentiment which I've not really read about, and of which Dickens was no doubt part - it was not just underlying economic factors, even if they are the growth medium - which made those with power gradually start caring more and doing more. The biggest change was the post-WWII welfare state, but there was a broad trajectory of improvement over the century or so before that. Something I'd like to read more about.
----
What Christmas is as We Grow Older is a short piece Dickens wrote in 1851 at the age of 39. The introduction explains the background: for some years Dickens had been struggling with memories of family members and friends who had died, and he had started to find Christmas increasingly sad because of this. This article is a kind of resolution in which he concludes that it is fine and right to think of them as well as of those present, and to remember youthful ambitions unfulfilled as well as enjoying what is happening now. (Although probably the latter had been easier for him, as a successful man.) It mirrors the integration he'd written about Scrooge experiencing, but after he'd had more struggles of his own that marred his wish to find Christmas special. It shows how much death it was normal for someone of that age to have experienced at that age in the Victorian era (very different from now, though I thought of one good friend who, quite recently, at the same age, lost a much-loved parent), and that regardless of its being a universal experience then, and despite Dickens' religious belief, it was still a struggle. I'm sure this is the sort of writing that makes some people scoff at Dickens' sentimentality (the bit about child angels especially); and I couldn't help but speculate that it might have annoyed people who knew the less pleasant sides of Dickens' character - yet overall I found the piece incredibly moving; it instilled a sense of reverence, and before the end I cried in a way few books have ever provoked (not just welling up a bit, the actually-need-a-handkerchief sort) and couldn't read anything else straight afterwards.
(4 Jan 2019)
Finished the collection, Dec 2019. Disappointing to realise this doesn't include all Dickens' Christmas books. The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth and The Battle of Life are not here. In the status updates, there are notes on the other six stories which *are*, read in December 2019.
I rarely re-read books, not least because there are too many classics I wish I'd read, and which I haven't yet read once, to launch myself into a project of re-reading. But also because I know that re-reading is more time-consuming both to do and to write about, because it's not just about the book and the current reading experience, but a reconsideration of what I'd previously got out of the story. (This post is, for the moment, just about A Christmas Carol and not the other Christmas Writings. People's appetite for Christmas material is probably already waning on 4th January, and I don't expect to finish this whole collection by Twelfth Night.)
The early pages of A Christmas Carol remained so familiar that I thought it might be basically impossible to review the book. It was simply itself and that's how it was. Goodness knows how many times I'd read them when I was growing up - I'd been given two different editions as presents before the age of ten, and would have opened and browsed them frequently. The only surprises were that some of Scrooge's anti-Christmas rants were genuinely funny, and that he was suffering from a cold throughout proceedings. However, I found it less familiar once I hit Stave Two, and more possible to think about it as I would another book, although every now and again, there were occasional sentences that had resounding familiarity from childhood, because they'd just got into my head, like "who and what are you?" or because they were probably captions to illustrations in other editions.
It was hard to tell whether this is an effect of my own early habituation to the text, or if I was spotting genuine influence at work, but there is a tone here which seems like the essence of British children's writing, especially, though not only, children's fantasy writing, and fantasy stories which aim to have cross-age appeal. Did Dickens essentially invent it? Or did he simply popularise it so that almost everyone since has been influenced via his work? Probably its greatest contemporary exponent is Neil Gaiman - including with that storyteller voice and occasional authorial breaking of the fourth wall that has become connected with the trust many readers have in his public persona (a clause which I feel could be saying equally about Dickens or Gaiman). I don't read much in the way of contemporary children's or YA, but it's also the tone A.L. Kennedy was going for in her Little Prince spin-off, The Little Snake, which I read a few months ago.
Often the sentences seemed astonishingly modern - noticeably more of them would work in contemporary writing than would sentences from, for example, Henry Fielding, written a century earlier. Perhaps this is due to the overwhelming popularity of the Carol which has led a huge readership and reuse, often unwitting, of many of the phrasings. I did not find myself struck by modernity of wording in the same way when I read the less popular Hard Times a couple of years earlier. But just when I was marvelling at all this, of course there would come along some paragraph really quite antiquated and tangled to 21st century ears, showing that this is indeed still a work of 1843.
What never would have occurred to me as a kid is that Scrooge is essentially forced through a rapid course of psychotherapy in order to effect personality change - only he didn't seek it out himself. (Did Freud read much Dickens?) Its transformative outcome in either three days or one, depending how you measure time in the book, is one that promoters of accelerated programmes like the Hoffmann Process can probably only dream of. He is made to examine how the past made him who he is, including a number of painful moments which reawaken a dormant capacity for a variety of emotions; he is shown the adverse effects he has on others, and his separation from what are considered healthy social norms; and then to reinforce it all, just in case his repentance - to use a term from religion that would have been recognisable to early Victorians - is not yet deep and sincere, he is forced to look in the eye the probable future consequences of his current way of life. His response to the final Spirit is basically the idea of psychological integration: "I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future."
The main, intended, message of A Christmas Carol is one of charity, and, ultimately, in tandem with Dickens' other works, the need to improve economic equality. However, I think that alongside this it also ends up showing lavish material consumption (via spending rather than hoarding of money) as a sign of being good-hearted. (Picking out unhelpful influences I absorbed from books and films when I was younger is, for me, an inevitable part of revisiting them. In some cases these influences occurred because I didn't properly understand the wider context or social norms beyond the work, but in the case of A Christmas Carol I think it's something the text in its many forms has actually put into the wider Anglo-American culture. 'Moderation in all things', or lagom to use the Swedish term increasingly fashionable in English, is not what it's about.) Whilst Scrooge is possibly malnourished himself, living on gruel to save money, Scrooge's nephew's house evidently has more than anyone could ever need. Bob Cratchit definitely needed a substantial pay rise and decent heating at work. (Which I think of all the more keenly knowing some of my own ancestors were unhealthy Victorian clerks, and another a milliner like one of the daughters.) But his Christmas dinner sounds very nice as it was - and would he have even been able to cook that giant turkey? Would the local ovens have had space for a thing like that, which would have normally been bought by a wealthy household? Would it have cost them more to cook and delayed neighbours' dinners by taking up communal oven space? I guess in an age of extreme wealth inequality there is lavishness and there is poverty, and Dickens' own life story had a hand in how he showed this. Issues of the later 20th and 21st century - of prevalent commercial and media pressures to overconsume leading to stress and overspending, and of ecological depletion - were certainly not on the radar of the Hungry Forties, when mouthwatering accounts of mountains of food could provide thrills and comfort to poorer readers who were scraping by, much as the Cratchits were. Slater's introduction refers to real letters readers sent to Dickens also saying how much they loved the scene of the family's dinner. Which, it’s interesting to see, includes a Christmas pudding cooked in the laundry copper - would that affect the taste? (I assume the name 'Cratchit' is supposed to have a scraping-by sort of sound and perhaps to echo Tiny Tim's crutch, but its echoes of 'crotchety' and 'crabbit' mean it also sounds ill-natured in a way that emphatically does not suit Bob and his family.)
The abundance of works like this one, showing great positive change in difficult people, can also lead to frustration over the years, as one gradually discovers that, in the reality of adult life, people do not necessarily change and 'grow' as much as would be helpful - but that is hardly peculiar to A Christmas Carol.
However, in terms of evaluating A Christmas Carol by modern mores, I suppose one can't much fault Dickens on healthy eating! Often in the 19th century, meat and carbohydrates were valued over vegetables, which could be seen as a food for the poor. (No sprouts to spoil the Cratchits' dinner!) Yet a paragraph this ecstatic about veg and fruit (Dickens even sexualises it somewhat) could only fit these days into food or travel writing; anywhere else it would sound like a parodic escape from a public health campaign - normally it is cakes and chocolate that are extolled this way:
There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars; and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made in the shopkeepers’ benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner.
The notes in this edition seem very good. There is very little in the way of material so obvious it's patronising, and only a couple of things missed out which could have done with notes: " a twice-turned gown" and " like a bad lobster in a dark cellar" (in 2018 the combination of lobsters and basements made one think of Jordan Peterson fans; goodness knows what greater significance it had in 1843).
Something I keep mulling over more generally about Dickens is how he was, in his day, so effective in his social reform agenda, and so well-loved by readers, whereas fiction doing the same now - not least because he's done it before - easily comes across as either mawkish, or written by and for a particular small audience (which has in the past couple of years come to be called 'liberal elites'). As far as I can work out, reasons for this on a larger scale would have included the reform-mindedness of some 19th century parliaments, the prevalence of some strands of Christianity, and the abundance of cheap energy fuelled industrialisation which required better education and thereby societal participation of workers. Whereas nowadays many people are aggrieved about declining standards of living, making them feel, en masse, less inclined to share, and the economic underpinnings have a different trajectory. (Not that Dickens didn't have opponents, of course. The introduction mentions that the Westminster Review condemned him, in June 1844, for his ignorance of political economy and the ‘laws’ of supply and demand: ‘Who went without turkey and punch in order that Bob Cratchit might get them – for, unless there were turkeys and punch in surplus, some one must go without – is a disagreeable reflection kept wholly out of sight [by Dickens].’ But this was a predictable reaction from Utilitarian extremists. ('Utilitarian extremists' seems somehow an absurd phrase now, if utilitarianism is an abstract idea from introductory philosophy courses, but evidently they were a thing!) Yet although the sight of the poor was surely more familiar to the wealthy of the 18th and 19th century than to their 21st century contemporaries in many western cities, people were shocked by reports on working and living conditions - Earlier in the year [1843] he, like Elizabeth Barrett and many others, had been appalled by the brutal revelations of the Second Report (Trades and Manufactures) of the Children’s Employment Commission set up by Parliament.. Were many shocked this way, or were plenty of others inured? There was evidently some shift of ideas and sentiment which I've not really read about, and of which Dickens was no doubt part - it was not just underlying economic factors, even if they are the growth medium - which made those with power gradually start caring more and doing more. The biggest change was the post-WWII welfare state, but there was a broad trajectory of improvement over the century or so before that. Something I'd like to read more about.
----
What Christmas is as We Grow Older is a short piece Dickens wrote in 1851 at the age of 39. The introduction explains the background: for some years Dickens had been struggling with memories of family members and friends who had died, and he had started to find Christmas increasingly sad because of this. This article is a kind of resolution in which he concludes that it is fine and right to think of them as well as of those present, and to remember youthful ambitions unfulfilled as well as enjoying what is happening now. (Although probably the latter had been easier for him, as a successful man.) It mirrors the integration he'd written about Scrooge experiencing, but after he'd had more struggles of his own that marred his wish to find Christmas special. It shows how much death it was normal for someone of that age to have experienced at that age in the Victorian era (very different from now, though I thought of one good friend who, quite recently, at the same age, lost a much-loved parent), and that regardless of its being a universal experience then, and despite Dickens' religious belief, it was still a struggle. I'm sure this is the sort of writing that makes some people scoff at Dickens' sentimentality (the bit about child angels especially); and I couldn't help but speculate that it might have annoyed people who knew the less pleasant sides of Dickens' character - yet overall I found the piece incredibly moving; it instilled a sense of reverence, and before the end I cried in a way few books have ever provoked (not just welling up a bit, the actually-need-a-handkerchief sort) and couldn't read anything else straight afterwards.
(4 Jan 2019)
Finished the collection, Dec 2019. Disappointing to realise this doesn't include all Dickens' Christmas books. The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth and The Battle of Life are not here. In the status updates, there are notes on the other six stories which *are*, read in December 2019.
December 24, 2021
“…there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.”
This collection of Christmas writings by Charles Dickens contains (of course) “A Christmas Carol” and 7 other stories/essays. Although I was not fond of moments in the collection, overall the animating spirit of Christmas, Christ, and human decency that permeates them all won me over in the end.
I start with “A Christmas Carol”, a piece that I love even more every time I return to it. It has become such a mainstay in how we perceive the spirit of Christmas. Its power is obvious in how permanently and potently it has permeated our collective culture.
A moment that I absolutely love is the speech that Scrooge’s nephew gives on what Christmas really means. It is rousing and beautiful. And true.
Some quotes that jumped out-
• “It’s enough for a man to understand his own business and not interfere with other people’s.”
• “I wear the chain I forged in life.”
• “If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.”
• “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
• “…they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty.”
• “Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing…”
• “He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas day who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.”
• “But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time…”
• “…hear me. I am not the man I was!”
• “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
• “Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in.”
“A Christmas Carol” ends with a final chapter that is as joyful a reading as can be found in imaginative literature.
I love this text!
#1
The essay “Christmas Festivities” is a lovely little piece about family holiday gatherings.
Quotes:
• “Reflect upon your present blessings.”
• “A Christmas family party! We know nothing in nature more delightful.”
#2
“The Story of the Goblins who Stole a Sexton” is an okay story about a gravedigger who is visited by goblins on Christmas Eve. In all honesty I don’t remember much about it.
Quotes:
• “But he was an altered man, and he could not bear the thought of returning to a place where his repentance would be scoffed at, and his reformation disbelieved.”
#3
“A Christmas Episode from Master Humphrey’s Clock” is a nice short story about two lonely people who meet on Christmas Day and become dear friends. I found it to be such a positive spin on the loneliness some folks endure during the holidays.
Quotes:
• “Solitary men are accustomed, I suppose, unconsciously to look upon solitude as their own peculiar property.”
• “Meantime we have gone on strengthening in our friendship and regard, and forming an attachment which, I trust and believe, will only be interrupted by death, to be renewed in another existence.”
#4
“The Haunted Man”
This novella has a powerful theme. Unfortunately it is incased in a work who execution from time to time I did not care for at all. This was the only piece in the collection that I wanted over and yet it kept going. It is also the longest piece in the collection.
But then, there would pop up a moment like this that would make the slog worth it. Consider this moment-
“ ‘May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us, to remember wrong that has been done to us?’
‘Yes.’
‘That we may forgive it.’ ”
Hard to hate a work that emphasizes that theme.
Quotes:
• “If I could forget my sorrow and wrong, I would.”
• “Think of your own remarkable mother boys…and know her value while she is still among you.”
• “Health will be more precious to you, after this illness, than it has ever been.”
• “There is hope for all who are softened and penitent.”
• “I thought there was no air about you; but there is and it’s the air of home, and that’s the purest and the best there is, and GOD bless home once more.”
#5
“A Christmas Tree”
The oddest piece in the collection. Dickens starts it out as a remembrance of childhood toys, brought on by his staring at a Christmas tree. It then transitions into an examination of ghosts. I was a bit lost for a moment, but then he brings the two elements together in an interesting conclusion.
Quotes:
• “I began to consider, what do we all remember best upon the branches of the Christmas Tree of our own young Christmas days, by which we climbed to real life.”
• “And I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should.”
• “Ghosts have little originality, and ‘walk’ in a beaten track.”
#6
“What Christmas is as We Grow Older”
A sentimental and melancholy essay that focuses on the memory of those we loved and have lost. It examines how the season brings them back to our hearts and minds.
#7
“The Seven Poor Travelers”
A quick and simple conclusion to this text.
Quotes:
• "...that Christmas comes but once a year,—which is unhappily too true, for when it begins to stay with us the whole year round we shall make this earth a very different place.”
• “Our whole life, Travellers,” said I, “is a story more or less intelligible,—¬generally less; but we shall read it by a clearer light when it is ended.”
All in all, a good collection to read for the season. It will warm the heart, make the mind appreciative, and remind us to be thankful. I can’t complain about that at all.
Thanks, Mr. Dickens for not letting the negative spirits of this world keep you from celebrating the good in mankind!
This collection of Christmas writings by Charles Dickens contains (of course) “A Christmas Carol” and 7 other stories/essays. Although I was not fond of moments in the collection, overall the animating spirit of Christmas, Christ, and human decency that permeates them all won me over in the end.
I start with “A Christmas Carol”, a piece that I love even more every time I return to it. It has become such a mainstay in how we perceive the spirit of Christmas. Its power is obvious in how permanently and potently it has permeated our collective culture.
A moment that I absolutely love is the speech that Scrooge’s nephew gives on what Christmas really means. It is rousing and beautiful. And true.
Some quotes that jumped out-
• “It’s enough for a man to understand his own business and not interfere with other people’s.”
• “I wear the chain I forged in life.”
• “If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.”
• “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
• “…they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty.”
• “Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing…”
• “He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas day who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.”
• “But, they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time…”
• “…hear me. I am not the man I was!”
• “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”
• “Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in.”
“A Christmas Carol” ends with a final chapter that is as joyful a reading as can be found in imaginative literature.
I love this text!
#1
The essay “Christmas Festivities” is a lovely little piece about family holiday gatherings.
Quotes:
• “Reflect upon your present blessings.”
• “A Christmas family party! We know nothing in nature more delightful.”
#2
“The Story of the Goblins who Stole a Sexton” is an okay story about a gravedigger who is visited by goblins on Christmas Eve. In all honesty I don’t remember much about it.
Quotes:
• “But he was an altered man, and he could not bear the thought of returning to a place where his repentance would be scoffed at, and his reformation disbelieved.”
#3
“A Christmas Episode from Master Humphrey’s Clock” is a nice short story about two lonely people who meet on Christmas Day and become dear friends. I found it to be such a positive spin on the loneliness some folks endure during the holidays.
Quotes:
• “Solitary men are accustomed, I suppose, unconsciously to look upon solitude as their own peculiar property.”
• “Meantime we have gone on strengthening in our friendship and regard, and forming an attachment which, I trust and believe, will only be interrupted by death, to be renewed in another existence.”
#4
“The Haunted Man”
This novella has a powerful theme. Unfortunately it is incased in a work who execution from time to time I did not care for at all. This was the only piece in the collection that I wanted over and yet it kept going. It is also the longest piece in the collection.
But then, there would pop up a moment like this that would make the slog worth it. Consider this moment-
“ ‘May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us, to remember wrong that has been done to us?’
‘Yes.’
‘That we may forgive it.’ ”
Hard to hate a work that emphasizes that theme.
Quotes:
• “If I could forget my sorrow and wrong, I would.”
• “Think of your own remarkable mother boys…and know her value while she is still among you.”
• “Health will be more precious to you, after this illness, than it has ever been.”
• “There is hope for all who are softened and penitent.”
• “I thought there was no air about you; but there is and it’s the air of home, and that’s the purest and the best there is, and GOD bless home once more.”
#5
“A Christmas Tree”
The oddest piece in the collection. Dickens starts it out as a remembrance of childhood toys, brought on by his staring at a Christmas tree. It then transitions into an examination of ghosts. I was a bit lost for a moment, but then he brings the two elements together in an interesting conclusion.
Quotes:
• “I began to consider, what do we all remember best upon the branches of the Christmas Tree of our own young Christmas days, by which we climbed to real life.”
• “And I do come home at Christmas. We all do, or we all should.”
• “Ghosts have little originality, and ‘walk’ in a beaten track.”
#6
“What Christmas is as We Grow Older”
A sentimental and melancholy essay that focuses on the memory of those we loved and have lost. It examines how the season brings them back to our hearts and minds.
#7
“The Seven Poor Travelers”
A quick and simple conclusion to this text.
Quotes:
• "...that Christmas comes but once a year,—which is unhappily too true, for when it begins to stay with us the whole year round we shall make this earth a very different place.”
• “Our whole life, Travellers,” said I, “is a story more or less intelligible,—¬generally less; but we shall read it by a clearer light when it is ended.”
All in all, a good collection to read for the season. It will warm the heart, make the mind appreciative, and remind us to be thankful. I can’t complain about that at all.
Thanks, Mr. Dickens for not letting the negative spirits of this world keep you from celebrating the good in mankind!
December 14, 2022
لا مجال لندم يمكن أن يعوض عن سوء استغلال فرصة ما؛ فهي حياة واحدة فقط نعيشها او نفوتها
December 26, 2023
It has become an annual ritual now for last few years. I have always ended my Goodreads reading challenge with Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. This year I chose the first edition - A Christmas Carol and other Christmas Writings which is part of Penguin's 85 beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series first published in 2010. Designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith, these collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.
With an introduction by Michael Slater this edition includes six Christmas stories by Dickens other than A Christmas Carol
The clothbound edition of Sense and Sensibility was released on November 6, 2008. In the 14 years since, Penguin Classics have published 85 Clothbound Classics, ranging from Les Misérables (columns of songbirds on branches, in red against black cloth, 2012) to The Lonely Londoners (the arched rafters of a train station ceiling, black on orange, 2021); originally released in “drops”, or small series, the Cloth bounds have now been folded into Penguin Classics’ publishing schedule. (Source Penguin.co.uk)
With an introduction by Michael Slater this edition includes six Christmas stories by Dickens other than A Christmas Carol
The clothbound edition of Sense and Sensibility was released on November 6, 2008. In the 14 years since, Penguin Classics have published 85 Clothbound Classics, ranging from Les Misérables (columns of songbirds on branches, in red against black cloth, 2012) to The Lonely Londoners (the arched rafters of a train station ceiling, black on orange, 2021); originally released in “drops”, or small series, the Cloth bounds have now been folded into Penguin Classics’ publishing schedule. (Source Penguin.co.uk)
April 13, 2017
3.75/5
cute! i was warned a million times about dickens's wordiness, but i had no problem with it here. (i'm very wordy myself when writing, so it'd be hypocritical to hate it.)
this never fully grabbed my attention, but i never minded reading it. i've of course seen the story done before (community theater! the mickey cartoon! etc etc) so it wasn't fresh by any means, but i'm glad i read it.
bottom line: this is a good read-in-a-lifetime book! i recommend it.
cute! i was warned a million times about dickens's wordiness, but i had no problem with it here. (i'm very wordy myself when writing, so it'd be hypocritical to hate it.)
this never fully grabbed my attention, but i never minded reading it. i've of course seen the story done before (community theater! the mickey cartoon! etc etc) so it wasn't fresh by any means, but i'm glad i read it.
bottom line: this is a good read-in-a-lifetime book! i recommend it.
May 9, 2025
**Please note, this review is for the specific “Readers Digest” edition. For my reviews of the text of these three books, please see my shelves. **
The books published by the “Readers Digest Association” are always beautifully produced, albeit they do not have ISBNs and perhaps are not regarded as mainstream publishing. This one is no exception. It is a hardback, with a green leatherette cover, and a red spine. Gold tooling is used for the title, the author, and for the decorative border. Inside, the paper used is heavy quality, smooth and creamy white (not glaring) and the print is dense and clear. It is sturdily bound, does not stay open, but equally is easy to hold open at the correct angle. As I say, they are nice, quality books.
This one contains the first three stories from the collection of five “Christmas Books”, written by Charles Dickens. The first is the perennially popular “A Christmas Carol” from 1843. The following year he wrote “The Chimes” which was published at Christmas in 1844, followed by “The Cricket on the Hearth” for Christmas in 1845. He was to write two more, but their popularity decreased year by year, so from then on Dickens was to write a considerable shorter Christmas story to publish in his magazine, and there are twenty more of these.
The first ever Christmas book, the novella “A Christmas Carol”, has been published in many editions. This one has the rare treat of including copious illustrations by the very talented - and unmistakable - Arthur Rackham, one of the leading illustrators from the “Golden Age” of British book illustration, during the first half of the 20th century. There are watercolours, incorporating some outline pen work, pen and India ink drawings, and silhouettes, all of which are listed at the beginning. The first page of the text is devoted to a list of characters, printed with a border, and looking rather like a theatre programme. The text follows with each colour illustration given a full page, and the black and white ones varying.
“The Chimes” also has illustrations by Arthur Rackham: watercolours, ink drawings, and silhouettes as before, although there are fewer because this is a shorter book. The characters in this one too are listed at the beginning.
“The Cricket on the Hearth” published for Christmas in 1845, uses different illustrators: Robert and Barbara Buchanan. Although an attempt has been made to match the techniques, the palette, and the style used, these are clearly modern illustrations, with none of the energy, verve and character of Arthur Rackham.
Altogether though, this is a lovely book to have. Even Dickens’s two short Prefaces have been included, and there are a few pages of an “Afterword”, adapted from “The Greatest Little Book in the World” by A. Edward Newton, which was first published in 1923.
Here are links to my reviews of the text of each of these three books:
A Christmas Carol ... Jean's review
The Chimes ... Jean's review
The Cricket on the Hearth ... Jean's review
The books published by the “Readers Digest Association” are always beautifully produced, albeit they do not have ISBNs and perhaps are not regarded as mainstream publishing. This one is no exception. It is a hardback, with a green leatherette cover, and a red spine. Gold tooling is used for the title, the author, and for the decorative border. Inside, the paper used is heavy quality, smooth and creamy white (not glaring) and the print is dense and clear. It is sturdily bound, does not stay open, but equally is easy to hold open at the correct angle. As I say, they are nice, quality books.
This one contains the first three stories from the collection of five “Christmas Books”, written by Charles Dickens. The first is the perennially popular “A Christmas Carol” from 1843. The following year he wrote “The Chimes” which was published at Christmas in 1844, followed by “The Cricket on the Hearth” for Christmas in 1845. He was to write two more, but their popularity decreased year by year, so from then on Dickens was to write a considerable shorter Christmas story to publish in his magazine, and there are twenty more of these.
The first ever Christmas book, the novella “A Christmas Carol”, has been published in many editions. This one has the rare treat of including copious illustrations by the very talented - and unmistakable - Arthur Rackham, one of the leading illustrators from the “Golden Age” of British book illustration, during the first half of the 20th century. There are watercolours, incorporating some outline pen work, pen and India ink drawings, and silhouettes, all of which are listed at the beginning. The first page of the text is devoted to a list of characters, printed with a border, and looking rather like a theatre programme. The text follows with each colour illustration given a full page, and the black and white ones varying.
“The Chimes” also has illustrations by Arthur Rackham: watercolours, ink drawings, and silhouettes as before, although there are fewer because this is a shorter book. The characters in this one too are listed at the beginning.
“The Cricket on the Hearth” published for Christmas in 1845, uses different illustrators: Robert and Barbara Buchanan. Although an attempt has been made to match the techniques, the palette, and the style used, these are clearly modern illustrations, with none of the energy, verve and character of Arthur Rackham.
Altogether though, this is a lovely book to have. Even Dickens’s two short Prefaces have been included, and there are a few pages of an “Afterword”, adapted from “The Greatest Little Book in the World” by A. Edward Newton, which was first published in 1923.
Here are links to my reviews of the text of each of these three books:
A Christmas Carol ... Jean's review
The Chimes ... Jean's review
The Cricket on the Hearth ... Jean's review
December 23, 2016
3.5 stars
4 stars for A Christmas Carol/2 or 3 for the others
I'm not sure how I've gotten to be the age I am without ever reading A Christmas Carol (I've never seen the movie either). I'm really glad that I decided to rectify that problem this year. I really enjoyed the well known tale of the ghosts of Christmas. The other stories were not bad but I didn't feel they had the same magic. This collection has some really interesting information in an appendix on Dickens's use of The Arabian Nights, a book which I really want to read.
4 stars for A Christmas Carol/2 or 3 for the others
I'm not sure how I've gotten to be the age I am without ever reading A Christmas Carol (I've never seen the movie either). I'm really glad that I decided to rectify that problem this year. I really enjoyed the well known tale of the ghosts of Christmas. The other stories were not bad but I didn't feel they had the same magic. This collection has some really interesting information in an appendix on Dickens's use of The Arabian Nights, a book which I really want to read.
Read
January 2, 2021Always a winner for me!
March 26, 2023
➥ 4 Stars *:･ﾟ✧
As mentioned, I was braindead while stress-reading this, so don't expect coherence. I think I somewhat liked it, and the quote above was so funny to me. I get what people mean though, now, about how Dicken's writing is dense. Oof. So yes, I'm now petrified to start Great Expectations but well!
Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
━━━━━━━━━━━ ♡ ━━━━━━━━━━━
As mentioned, I was braindead while stress-reading this, so don't expect coherence. I think I somewhat liked it, and the quote above was so funny to me. I get what people mean though, now, about how Dicken's writing is dense. Oof. So yes, I'm now petrified to start Great Expectations but well!
━━━━━━━━━━━ ♡ ━━━━━━━━━━━
February 3, 2024
I loved it and will read it again in future. I love the way Charles Dickens takes an entire paragraph to tell us one small thing and does it using the most amazing descriptive language.
There were so many quotes I loved, but I'm going to narrow it down to just a few:
From a happy family story, Christmas Festivities:
I love this quote as it brings my mind to our family Christmas festivities. We drench our Christmas pudding with brandy and light it on fire each Christmas Day, and it never ceases to bring gasps of wonder and smiles of joy.
"and when at last a stout servant staggers in with a gigantic pudding with a sprig of holly in the top, there is such a laughing, and shouting, and clapping of chubby little hands, and kicking up of dumpy legs, as can only be equalled by the applause with which the astonishing feat of pouring lighted brandy into mince pies is received by the younger visitors."
From a delightfully creepy short story, The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton:
Gabriel Grub, a sexton and grave-digger is visited by a goblin in the graveyard and experiences a life changing event. At the beginning of the story Grub is wonderfully described as "an ill-conditioned, cross-grained, surly fellow - a morose and lonely man, who consorted with nobody but himself, and an old wicker bottle which fitted into his large deep waistcoat pocket; who eyed each merry face as it passed him by, with such a deep scowl of malice and ill-humour, as it was difficult to meet without feeling something the worse for."
During Grub's interlude with the goblin he comes to several conclusions including:
that women "were the oftenest superior to sorrow, adversity, and distress; and he saw that it was because they bore in their own hearts an inexhaustible well-spring of affection and devotedness. Above all, he saw the men like himself, who snarled at the mirth and cheerfulness of others, were the foulest weeds on the fair surface of the earth; and setting all the good of the world against the evil, he came to the conclusion that it was a very decent and respectable world after all."
From A Christmas Carol - Stave One - Marley's Ghost
About Scrooge, Charles Dickens writes: "He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas."
There were so many quotes I loved, but I'm going to narrow it down to just a few:
From a happy family story, Christmas Festivities:
I love this quote as it brings my mind to our family Christmas festivities. We drench our Christmas pudding with brandy and light it on fire each Christmas Day, and it never ceases to bring gasps of wonder and smiles of joy.
"and when at last a stout servant staggers in with a gigantic pudding with a sprig of holly in the top, there is such a laughing, and shouting, and clapping of chubby little hands, and kicking up of dumpy legs, as can only be equalled by the applause with which the astonishing feat of pouring lighted brandy into mince pies is received by the younger visitors."
From a delightfully creepy short story, The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton:
Gabriel Grub, a sexton and grave-digger is visited by a goblin in the graveyard and experiences a life changing event. At the beginning of the story Grub is wonderfully described as "an ill-conditioned, cross-grained, surly fellow - a morose and lonely man, who consorted with nobody but himself, and an old wicker bottle which fitted into his large deep waistcoat pocket; who eyed each merry face as it passed him by, with such a deep scowl of malice and ill-humour, as it was difficult to meet without feeling something the worse for."
During Grub's interlude with the goblin he comes to several conclusions including:
that women "were the oftenest superior to sorrow, adversity, and distress; and he saw that it was because they bore in their own hearts an inexhaustible well-spring of affection and devotedness. Above all, he saw the men like himself, who snarled at the mirth and cheerfulness of others, were the foulest weeds on the fair surface of the earth; and setting all the good of the world against the evil, he came to the conclusion that it was a very decent and respectable world after all."
From A Christmas Carol - Stave One - Marley's Ghost
About Scrooge, Charles Dickens writes: "He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas."
December 4, 2014
Whenever I start a book like this, I expect for it to put me in the Christmas mood, and so it did! From the very first page, I could feel the crispness of the snow under my feet and the chill of the weather, and I didn't mind at all that we were in a graveyard!
Most of these Christmas stories contain pure magic - I especially loved the Sexton one and the legendary A Christmas Carol. Other stories didn't intrigue me that much but they still put me in the mood for Christmas. So all in all, I would say that this book was a success that needs to be repeated every Christmas in the many years to come.
Most of these Christmas stories contain pure magic - I especially loved the Sexton one and the legendary A Christmas Carol. Other stories didn't intrigue me that much but they still put me in the mood for Christmas. So all in all, I would say that this book was a success that needs to be repeated every Christmas in the many years to come.
December 25, 2023
A really enjoyable experience, I read this mainly on Christmas Eve with a cup of earl grey tea and Christmas instrumentals in my ears, overall a really fun experience.
December 22, 2022
A Christmas Carol:
Well I think most of us know the premise of this of this masterpiece. It really is a masterpiece the writing is beautiful and flowery but it still manages to be easy to read especially for a classic. The passion Dicken’s has about Christmas makes me so happy!
I may have seen one to many or the film adaptations before reading this book for the first time, but it didn’t make it any less special. Truly a beautiful piece of writing. This will now be a yearly read for me for sure!
The Haunted Man and The Ghosts Bargain:
As with all Dicken’s stories, the writing is beautiful. There are parts of this story we can all relate too, in particular the line ‘when they fantastically mocked the shapes of household objects, making the nurse an ogress, the rocking-hose a monster’ I am sure we have all experiences this in our lives. Dicken’s is the master of emotion, he expressed himself so well and he can produce and stir our own emotions and flashbacks to our younger selves.
However, this story ends up being very repetitive which makes it confusing at times, the story seems to bounce around a lot before ending with its final point. It’s message is that good and evil must coincide and the past cannot be changed only learned from.
The Christmas Tree:
This one is short and sweet, it describes the joys of Christmas and nostalgia.
Christmas Goblins:
This is like a little teaser to what is to come with A Christmas Carol. Its bizarre, fantastical and strange but it doesn’t give much more than that.
What Christmas is as we grow older:
This is more of a philosophical piece, about what it is to be alive and what it is to accept death. It’s all about keeping Christmas in our hearts. It talks of lose and thinking of those we have lost and who we have to leave behind in the end. It is quite whimsical but it has a nice message. A beautiful little Christmas story, not as happy as others but important.
Well I think most of us know the premise of this of this masterpiece. It really is a masterpiece the writing is beautiful and flowery but it still manages to be easy to read especially for a classic. The passion Dicken’s has about Christmas makes me so happy!
I may have seen one to many or the film adaptations before reading this book for the first time, but it didn’t make it any less special. Truly a beautiful piece of writing. This will now be a yearly read for me for sure!
The Haunted Man and The Ghosts Bargain:
As with all Dicken’s stories, the writing is beautiful. There are parts of this story we can all relate too, in particular the line ‘when they fantastically mocked the shapes of household objects, making the nurse an ogress, the rocking-hose a monster’ I am sure we have all experiences this in our lives. Dicken’s is the master of emotion, he expressed himself so well and he can produce and stir our own emotions and flashbacks to our younger selves.
However, this story ends up being very repetitive which makes it confusing at times, the story seems to bounce around a lot before ending with its final point. It’s message is that good and evil must coincide and the past cannot be changed only learned from.
The Christmas Tree:
This one is short and sweet, it describes the joys of Christmas and nostalgia.
Christmas Goblins:
This is like a little teaser to what is to come with A Christmas Carol. Its bizarre, fantastical and strange but it doesn’t give much more than that.
What Christmas is as we grow older:
This is more of a philosophical piece, about what it is to be alive and what it is to accept death. It’s all about keeping Christmas in our hearts. It talks of lose and thinking of those we have lost and who we have to leave behind in the end. It is quite whimsical but it has a nice message. A beautiful little Christmas story, not as happy as others but important.
December 27, 2016
"I have always thought of Christmas time as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely."
December 18, 2022
I really enjoyed A Christmas Carol, but the other stories felt a bit dry.
December 26, 2016
Reminds me what Christmas is all about...the giving ♥ (2015)
Wonderful story of compassion.
The book also contains two other Christmas stories.
The Haunted Man is what I read this time (2016). Again the story is set at Christmas eve, a darker and more subtle take revolves around the fate of a teacher of chemistry, named Redlaw, whose lonely existence is oppressed by a host of gloomy memories. Redlaw wants to be rid of every bad memory of suffering, unhappiness, and wrong that he has ever known. His wish is granted, only to realize that he has destroyed who he really is!
Wonderful story of compassion.
The book also contains two other Christmas stories.
The Haunted Man is what I read this time (2016). Again the story is set at Christmas eve, a darker and more subtle take revolves around the fate of a teacher of chemistry, named Redlaw, whose lonely existence is oppressed by a host of gloomy memories. Redlaw wants to be rid of every bad memory of suffering, unhappiness, and wrong that he has ever known. His wish is granted, only to realize that he has destroyed who he really is!
December 25, 2019
Honestly what can I even say about this book other than it is a timeless classic and the best thing to read at Christmas time! <3
December 9, 2009
I suppose that a story that is so ubiquitous during Christmas time as this one needs no introduction. I can see why it has been constantly popular for more than one hundred years. I appreciate the writing and craft that goes into the story, the social commentary, the worthy morals, and the affection that generations of readers have for it. But I hated it. Yes, it's official, I'm the Grinch and (pre-reformed) Scrooge rolled into one. I have a heart made of stone, or at least something equally hard, immune to the plight of tiny, poor, crippled tots and destitute Victorian families who couldn't afford a stuffed goose for their Christmas tables.
I found the story to be simplistic, with sketchy, largely one dimensional characters, and so drenched in sugary sentimentality that it made my teeth hurt. I can deal with sentimentality, but such a massive, industrial-strength dose of it renders me comatose, instead of being genuinely moved.
*slinking away to hide under a rock until Christmas is over*
I found the story to be simplistic, with sketchy, largely one dimensional characters, and so drenched in sugary sentimentality that it made my teeth hurt. I can deal with sentimentality, but such a massive, industrial-strength dose of it renders me comatose, instead of being genuinely moved.
*slinking away to hide under a rock until Christmas is over*
December 28, 2017
I rounded this novel up to 4, as an average for all the stories in this novel. This novel is a collection of Dickens' Christmas stories, including "A Christmas Carol", five other Christmas-themed stories, fourteen very short Christmas stories, and three short Christmas stories he co-wrote. For the sake of time and space, I have only included the five Christmas stories in this review.
A Christmas Carol: 5 Obviously. There is no need to sum up this story's plot so I won't go into it. This story is the most recognized and traditional Christmas story in history and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Chimes: 4 "Trotty" is a pauper who is struggling to survive in a world that believes he (and others like him) should be "put down". The chimes from the bells of the local church ring out the rhythm to his life. When he falls down the church tower and has a near-death experience, he returns to his life determined to value those he holds dear.
This story is similar to "A Christmas Carol", except for the fact that Trotty is a pauper, and he appears to be undeserving of his harsh experiences.
A Cricket on the Hearth: 3 Told from the point of view of "the narrator", the young, newly married couple that are the protagonists, hear a 'cricket on the hearth' and deem that to be good luck. The story is a love story between Dot and John (our cricket homeowners), May and Edward (their young friends), and Caleb and his blind daughter.
This story is not Christmas themed (in reality, the young couple were married on New Years and they talk about how their one year anniversary is coming up) and unrealistic to the extreme. (We are to assume that rich, old Tackleton will simply give up his bride-to-be because he knows she is in love with someone else, who has miraculously returned to town). Dickens' stories are hard to follow with his archaic, poetic language, and this story had no plot, which made it even more of a challenge.
The Book of Life: 3 This story takes place around Christmas but does not have a strong holiday theme, and, like its previous stories, it revolves around a near-death experience which challenges the main characters to re-examine their world views. In this story, one sister sacrifices the love of her life for her sister (who has been in love with him for years) which, although altruistic, is also unbelievable and speaks to the dated era of Dickens. I thoroughly enjoyed the roles of Clementine and Britain however, the two destined housekeepers.
The Haunted Man: 4 This story is most similar to "The Christmas Carol". Our main character, the Chemist Redlaw, has had his memories of loss, pain and trauma taken away from him (voluntarily) and he spends the plot of the story trying to regain them, as he learns that he cannot fully appreciate happiness without the counterweight of sadness. Not particularly Christmas-themed either, but the theme is very reminiscent of the season.
I enjoyed the introduction particularly, as it detailed the life of Charles Dickens and how he came to write "A Christmas Carol" and its subsequent stories. I became entirely obsessed with his life after this, and believe he deserves full props and respect for being the literary figure he is. These stories are difficult to read due to their poetic language (think Shakespeare) but the themes remain true and the literary caliber is five-star.
A Christmas Carol: 5 Obviously. There is no need to sum up this story's plot so I won't go into it. This story is the most recognized and traditional Christmas story in history and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Chimes: 4 "Trotty" is a pauper who is struggling to survive in a world that believes he (and others like him) should be "put down". The chimes from the bells of the local church ring out the rhythm to his life. When he falls down the church tower and has a near-death experience, he returns to his life determined to value those he holds dear.
This story is similar to "A Christmas Carol", except for the fact that Trotty is a pauper, and he appears to be undeserving of his harsh experiences.
A Cricket on the Hearth: 3 Told from the point of view of "the narrator", the young, newly married couple that are the protagonists, hear a 'cricket on the hearth' and deem that to be good luck. The story is a love story between Dot and John (our cricket homeowners), May and Edward (their young friends), and Caleb and his blind daughter.
This story is not Christmas themed (in reality, the young couple were married on New Years and they talk about how their one year anniversary is coming up) and unrealistic to the extreme. (We are to assume that rich, old Tackleton will simply give up his bride-to-be because he knows she is in love with someone else, who has miraculously returned to town). Dickens' stories are hard to follow with his archaic, poetic language, and this story had no plot, which made it even more of a challenge.
The Book of Life: 3 This story takes place around Christmas but does not have a strong holiday theme, and, like its previous stories, it revolves around a near-death experience which challenges the main characters to re-examine their world views. In this story, one sister sacrifices the love of her life for her sister (who has been in love with him for years) which, although altruistic, is also unbelievable and speaks to the dated era of Dickens. I thoroughly enjoyed the roles of Clementine and Britain however, the two destined housekeepers.
The Haunted Man: 4 This story is most similar to "The Christmas Carol". Our main character, the Chemist Redlaw, has had his memories of loss, pain and trauma taken away from him (voluntarily) and he spends the plot of the story trying to regain them, as he learns that he cannot fully appreciate happiness without the counterweight of sadness. Not particularly Christmas-themed either, but the theme is very reminiscent of the season.
I enjoyed the introduction particularly, as it detailed the life of Charles Dickens and how he came to write "A Christmas Carol" and its subsequent stories. I became entirely obsessed with his life after this, and believe he deserves full props and respect for being the literary figure he is. These stories are difficult to read due to their poetic language (think Shakespeare) but the themes remain true and the literary caliber is five-star.
July 22, 2017
How can you rate one of the greatest morality novellas of all time? It's a Christmas classic! Preaching compassion, sympathy, empathy and generosity, A Christmas Carol is beautifully written, atmospheric, playful and politically charged.
December 17, 2017
*Rated 3.5/5 stars
Read
December 27, 2022"I will honour christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the past, the present, and the future. the spirits of all three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach."
this was exactly what I was looking for in a christmas story. very easy and simple to read with a cute underlying message. it's a bit childish but when it comes to something lighthearted to get me in the christmas mood I don't mind that at all. there's also a great audiobook version with a full cast and background noise and it will probably end up being something I'm gonna listen to at the start of every holiday season from now on just to boost my holiday spirit a bit. the reason I couldn't rate this was because I read "a christmas carol and other christmas writings" and there was such a difference between what I would've rated the different stories that I just couldn't find a fair middle. I would rate a christmas carol by itself five stars but the others were really average and not at all memorable. if you own this edition I honestly wouldn't waste my time reading anything other than a christmas carol.
ig: @winterrainreads
this was exactly what I was looking for in a christmas story. very easy and simple to read with a cute underlying message. it's a bit childish but when it comes to something lighthearted to get me in the christmas mood I don't mind that at all. there's also a great audiobook version with a full cast and background noise and it will probably end up being something I'm gonna listen to at the start of every holiday season from now on just to boost my holiday spirit a bit. the reason I couldn't rate this was because I read "a christmas carol and other christmas writings" and there was such a difference between what I would've rated the different stories that I just couldn't find a fair middle. I would rate a christmas carol by itself five stars but the others were really average and not at all memorable. if you own this edition I honestly wouldn't waste my time reading anything other than a christmas carol.
ig: @winterrainreads
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