William Shakespeare's Christmas Carol

by Ian Doescher, Joshua Hicks (Illustrator)

Humbug, forsooth! In William Shakespeare’s Christmas Carol, you’ll experience Dickens’ classic tale with a new (Oliver) twist. Ebenezer Scrooge is a wealthy theater owner with a stingy heart, until he’s visited by his old partner Marlowe. The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future become Puck (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Falstaff (the Henry V plays), and the Ghost of King Hamlet. Benedick and Beatrice Cratchit worry about their child Tiny Tim, and other familiar characters fill out the cast in this Shakespearean adaptation of your holiday favorite, all in iambic pentameter. Bard bless us, every one!

Ian Doescher - author of the William Shakespeare Star Wars series - has a B.A. in Music from Yale University, a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Ethics from Union Theological Seminary. Ian lives in Portland, Oregon, with his spouse and two sons. Visit Ian online at www.iandoescher.com.

Cover design by Evan Twohy

Genres: Christmas, Shakespeare, Humor, Plays, Drama, Fantasy, Theatre

95 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 8, 2015

About the author

Ian is the author of the William Shakespeare Star Wars series and the Pop Shakespeare series, and other books. He's a Portland native, and lives in Portland with his family.

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as cute as the Star Wars ones, but who doesn't like Falstaff as the Ghost of Christmas Present?

[Jordan Lahn · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always this is a fun romp through a familiar tale with a Shakespearean twist, but this one falls short of the masterpiece that is William Shakespeare's Star Wars. Perhaps it's because I'm not as familiar with the source material. Perhaps it's because the language didn't seem all that different from what you'd normally expect from A Christmas Carol. It could be because the twist on this story is a little different: each character in the Christmas Carol is played by a different Shakespearean character. I guess I don't know Shakespeare well enough because I was only occasionally able to recognize the references (eg Rozencranz and Gildenstern losing their heads, the Witches rhyme, etc). I was looking forward to another Afterward where Ian points out all the clever things he did (usually I read that first, but with the eBook I didn't want to skip to the end), but this time there was nothing at the end, which was disappointing. Overall, it was still a really fun retelling of the classic story, and a great read this holiday season.

[Natalie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I might be slightly biased because I love everything that Ian Doescher writes in iambic pentameter, but this was just amazing. It was laugh out loud funny. I love all the references to quotes from the various plays that are woven into A Christmas Carol. The character choices were spot on too - Puck was a perfect Ghost of Christmas Past, and Lord and Lady Macbeth had me cracking up.

Also - the little drawings! LOL

Can you tell I loved this? Ian Doescher is a genius. I can’t wait to see what he will rewrite into Shakespearean language next.

Why don’t more people write in iambic pentameter? It needs to make a comeback.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m sure I missed almost every reference, but I enjoyed reading the story in this form. The author is great, and I strongly recommend reading his Shakespearean Star Wars books. Well worth it.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dickens' Christmas Carol is, in my opinion, a near-perfect story and the various interpretations and renditions always interest me. At first I didn't love the use of actual characters from Shakespeare's works but I ended up appreciating it in the way I have the many parodies of this story done with existing characters from other worlds.

[Anita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike Ian Doescher's book-length plays, this is super short — only 84 pages. It would make for a great pre-holiday break read, when your students are already dreaming of being out of school. It's appropriate for 6-9th grades, I'd say, as most will be familiar with the story — A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.

Usually I suggest one scene, per day, and no more, to start as your students may struggle to get through those until they get the hang of reading the work. But these scenes are so short, with so few readers, I'm going to recommend reading an Act a day, making this a five-day in-class read, no more. Maybe even less, depending on how proficient your readers are and how quickly they pick up the iambic pentameter.

Keep track of who is reading by noting, each day, who has read which character. For this, I've made available my Reading Roles Sheets.

Try not to allow students to always read the same character, especially Scrooge. He gets a lot of speaking time, so spread that role around. You might even assign it to different readers, in different scenes. Also, some characters speak in prose, not verse. Or in verse, such as villanelles and rhyming quatrains, but not iambic pentameter. If students switch up roles, they'll learn to identify the different forms of poetry. They'll also learn a little bit about each character. You want everyone reading because they will all need practice doing this and you want to keep them engaged. Non-readers will zone out.

Because the play is so short, there are few opportunities for speaking parts in this play. Act 1 has only 8 speaking roles; Act 2, 10; Act 3 has the most, at 16; Act 4 hs 14; and Act 5 only 10.

Each act is broken into scenes, as well: Act 1 has 2; Act 2 has 3 scens; Act 3 has the most, 4 scenes; Act 4 has only 1; and Act 5 has 3.

I also strongly suggest watching the movie (there are several to choose from) in segments that correspond to the acts, before or after reading each act. Some students will not have sufficient background knowledge to understand the story and thus what they're reading. Breaking up the watching / reading helps to keep their interest, as well.

In addition, Doescher uses a Chorus for this play. I encourage you to use the Chorus as a full-class choral read. It occurs several times in this play.

If you want to use this as an opportunity to introduce iambic pentameter, check out my lesson plans for using any of Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars books: https://amb.mystrikingly.com/#the-fab...


Looking for more book suggestions for your 7th/8th grade classroom and students?

Visit my blog for more great middle grade book recommendations, free teaching materials and fiction writing tips: https://amb.mystrikingly.com/

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I own all of this author’s Star Wars books, and I use them with my students during my Shakespeare unit. They are fabulous! I’m not sure how I missed this one, but I am so excited to start using this one with my students, as well. I loved that most of the characters were given Shakespeare counterparts (Puck as the Ghost of Christmas Past was definitely my favorite), and I loved that the iambic pentameter sometimes varied according to characters (Puck spoke in 7 syllables of trochee, Falstaff/Ghost of Christmas Present spoke in prose, etc). This version retained the heart of the original with some fun tweaks and even some famous Shakespeare lines. Very enjoyable.

[Lulu248 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not what I expected

I’m rather disappointed with this “twist” of an old tale. It is just the same old tale with some (a rather unimaginative choice) of Shakespearean characters. I’m obviously not expecting any proses of the Bard’s quality, but is a little wit too much to ask?!

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Puck: I am he, be not aghast --
I, the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Scrooge: Long past, a ghoul of far-off history?

Puck: Nay, not too far past am I
Thy past thou'lt see by and by.

Scrooge: Beg pardon, spirit. Wherefore are you here?

Puck: Thine own welfare, canst thou see?
Rise anon and walk with me.

Two great tastes that taste great together!

I enjoyed this immensely.

[Jeff Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Telling the tale in play format with some of Shakespeare's great characters. Yes ... R&C are there. :)
I really like how Doescher includes some of the well known lines (slightly modified) in the play. It is a quick easy read. True to the original but with a few quirks here and there. Definitely recommend it to lovers of The Carol and The Bard.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

More fun thanks to Amazon's new Prime Reading free library. I love both A CHRISTMAS CAROL (I reread it most years on Christmas) & Shakespeare, and while I didn't find this as well done as either original or the parts of Doescher's Star Wars parodies that I've come across in the past, I did enjoy it, especially the usage of characters and lines from Shakespeare. A fun, quick read to get in the holiday spirit.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a cute combination of A Christmas Carol and Shakespeare. The characters were all from Shakespeare's plays. I would have liked it a little bit more if I knew all the Shakespeare references since I have not read all his plays.

[Carlos Silva · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve only read A Christmas Carol this past Christmas and I had only one problem with it: Dickens’ prose is definitely not for me. It feels like trying to eat a bar of iron. He is one of those authors whose books I love the idea more than the experience of reading itself. Whenever I think about that short story, I feel like I like it better than I did back when I was reading it – because the longer I’m away from it, the more I forget about the roughness of the writing and more about the story itself.

And then Ian Doescher comes and fixes the whole thing by making it palatable for Shakespeare lovers and the irony of disliking Dickens’ writing but loving Shakespeare’s, which is objectively harder to swallow, doesn’t go unnoticed, thanks for asking.

This book has a really interesting approach to an adaptation – not only does the writing resembles Shakespeare’s, but also the characters are borrowed from the Bard’s works. There is a lot of intertextuality with the plays, but you don’t miss out on the story itself if you haven’t read them. The characters are merely used as "actors" for the characters in A Christmas Story (like Juliet playing Scrooge’s teenage girlfriend and Romeo playing Scrooge himself as a teenager). There are also some lines from the original plays, but they are contextualized in the story, so even if you don’t pick them up, it doesn’t spoil your reading experience, for example:

Puck, the Ghost of Christmas Past: Other Christmases we’ll see,
We shall spy the man to be.
Up and down, yea, up and down,
I shall lead thee up and down.

and

Mercutio: A gift on both your houses, my good lads!

This was a really wonderful read – one that will captivate both Dickens’ enthusiasts and Shakespeare’s aficionados. I’m really impressed with Doescher’s creative process!

[Augusto Guibone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Carlos César. Antonio Augusto. Digievolução de DNA para .... Esse livro.


okok shakespeare me conquista por ser dramático e pelo meu amor ao teatro e bem, eu amo um cântico de natal e amo o modo como dickens inventa e conta as histórias dele. O que poderia dar errado então na junção dos dois??? Nada. (E felizmente nada deu exatamente errado nesse livro!!)

Em termos de enredo não há muito o que dizer. É exatamente o texto que Dickens escreve, só que ao invés do formato de prosa, o autor utiliza o texto teatral e também a linguagem de um modo shakespeariano (ler esse livro foi um torrente de palavras que eu nem sabia que existiam!!!) e também substitui personagens da história original por personagens escritos por shakespeare. Bem, eu só li uma obra de shakespeare e os personagens dela foram ignorados (ainda bem, porque ela é chata) mas mesmo assim ainda conseguia pegar uma ou outra referência (ok, Carlos me explicou a maioria) e imaginar eles dessa forma foi até divertido.

Acho que pra mim o maior incômodo (além de não ter entendido todas as palavras - mas foi um desafio e eu gostei) era que eu esperava um pouco mais das alterações do enredo, não esperava que fosse a junção plena de ambos e sim que ele mesclaria com algumas características das peças de Shakespeare e utilizaria novos elementos de modo relevante (o Scrooge aqui por exemplo é dono de uma Cia de teatro, mas isso pouco importa pro enredo de um modo geral). Quando eu não entendia uma passagem era basicamente imaginar como ela acontecia no texto de dickens e seguir lendo.

Mas no geral, foi uma boa experiência sim. Tem todo o lirismo de uma peça shakesperiana com o enredo que eu amo de dickens e essa combinação foi bem satisfatória. Não faria essa leitura com outra pessoa que não Carlos e eu amei que ele gostou tanto da história e toda a nossa experiência de "shakesbiddyread"

[Tung · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humblebrag: in high school, I memorized Hamlet – not his lines; no, I memorized the whole play. In college, I read Shakespeare’s whole oeuvre. Suffice to say, I love Shakespeare. And I love Ian Doescher’s writings that combine Shakespearean prose with pop culture. Doescher’s eight Star Wars Shakespeare books are among my favorite books of all time. This book imagines Dickens’ Christmas classic as a Shakespearean play told in iambic pentameter, complete with acts, scenes, asides, and so forth. Many of the lines of dialogue are reinvented lines from the book told in old English. But more than Doescher’s ability to craft technically-perfect Shakespearean prose, what makes his books so good is his ability to cleverly match pop culture character to Shakespearean character. Here, for example, Doescher makes the Ghost of Christmas present Falstaff, and the Ghost of Christmas Future the ghost of Hamlet’s dad – so good. In another example, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern make a cameo as the two men who ask Scrooge for money for their charity at the beginning of the story. Then at the end, when the newly-reformed Scrooge gives them money, Scrooge notes to them “Lose not your heads o’er this, but do accept as I freely give.” For Shakespeare buffs and for people who like to feel clever and smart because they are in on the joke, there is nothing better than Doescher’s works. Highly recommended.

[Michael Gravante · Rating 4 out of 5]

This version of A Christmas Carol uses the same narrative device as Mickey's Christmas Carol: Where the Disney version populates the story with minor Disney characters, this populates the story with characters from Shakespeare plays and Elizabethan references. Jacob Marley becomes Christopher Marlowe (lol), Romeo and Juliet play Scrooge's younger self and his love interest, and the three spirits are played by Puck (from A Midsummer Night's Dream), Falstaff (from The Merry Wives of Windsor), and King Hamlet's Ghost (from Hamlet). Although there is a part of me that wishes that Yet-to-Come was played by the Ghost of Julius Caesar instead.

Not my favorite Ian Doescher retelling, but still fun. And Shakespearean language pairs very well with the Dickensian aesthetic.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel as if this mash-up of Dickens’ Christmas novella written in Shakespeare’s play ‘formula’ was written just for me. I think I was smiling as I read each page. Doescher chose the PERFECT Shakespeare characters to portray the players in A Christmas Carol.
Ghost of Christmas Past~ Puck
Ghost of Christmas Present ~ Falstaff
Ghost of Christmas Future ~ the Ghost of Hamlet’s Father
plus more!!
It’s one thing to re-pen a classic, well-known beloved story into a different writer’s format....but to adhere so vigilantly to Shakespeare’s 5 Act, rhyme scheme, iambic pentameter method all the while staying true to the heart of Dickens’ story was such a treat....such a gift.
God bless good writers....everyone!

[sabisteb aka callisto · Rating 5 out of 5]

Witziges Mashup für Shakespeare Fans

Dickens Weihnachtsgeschichte bekommt hier einen netten Shakespeare Twist, der über die Sprache hinaus geht. Natürlich ist die Geschichte, wie man das von Shakespeare's Star Wars kennt in blank verse. ABER zurätzlich ist Scrooge ein Theaterinhaber, der einfach nur Kohle mit dem Eintrittsgeld machen will. Die Geister sind bekannte Figuren aus Shakespeare Stücken, genau wie alle anderen Charaktere auch. Ein ähnliches Konzept also, wie in "Kill Shakespeare", wo die Figuren andere Rollen einnehmen aber die Charakterisierung aus den Stücken bleibt.
Wenn man seinen Shakespeare gelesen hat, erkennt man auch, dass sich der Stil der Kapitel entsprechen der auftretenden Figuren ändert und es sind Zitaten und Reminiszenzen aus dem Originalstücken, aus denen die Figuren entlehnt wurden, in den Text eingearbeitet.
Sehr intelligent gemacht. Man hat aber nur wirklich Freude daran, wenn man die bekannten Stücke, auf die sich das Buch bezieht, auch kennt.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

A different take on the classic story of Scrooge. Ian Doescher reimagines Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol in the form of a Shakespeare play. Utilizing characters from Shakespeare's plays like Hamlet as the Ghost of Christmas Future and Falstaff as the Ghost of Christmas Present, Doescher brings Scrooge to life in a very Elizabethan way.

[Jenna Gareis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five things about William Shakespeare’s Christmas Carol by Ian Doescher 5/5⭐️

1. This is a work of delightful, festive genius.
2. For those with a passing knowledge of Shakespeare or Dickens’s Carol , you’ll be entertained.
3. For those with a moderate to in depth knowledge of Shakespeare and Dickens’s Carol, you are in for real treat!
4. Reading this is like watching all your favorite fictional Shakespearean characters do unexpected cameo performances in your favorite movie.
5. So. Much. Fun!
6. And somehow so very true to the spirits of both Shakespeare, Dickens, and Christmas too.

[Carrie Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two of my favorite things in literature are A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and many of Shakespeare's plays. This is a book that I have wanted to pick up for quite some time, and I am happy to say that I finally have. Ian is famous for his Shakespearean versions of the Star Wars movies that I have yet to read. I had a lot of fun reading this and seeing the references to many of Shakespeare's plays throughout, along with the story. My favorite parts were Puck as The Ghost of Christmas Past and The Witches as the thieves.

[RK · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book

Ian Doescher has done it again! Taking a timeless tale and adapting it to look like a Shakespeare script. An amusing twist, to take Dickens’ characters and give them Shakespearean names - so the ghost of Christmas past becomes Puck, The two men collecting for charity become Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and so on. A great read, and would make a great performance too.

[Sheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shakespeare AND Dickens

Dickens’ classic tale with a twist. Shakespeare’s language and style with a few of his characters playing parts in the Dickens story. Occasional steps out of the 17th century to give a nod to modern times (“holla”! And “chestnuts roasting on an open fire”) caused a chuckle or two.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun version of A Christmas Carol, with King Hamlet's ghost as the Ghost of Christmas Future, John Falstaff as the Ghost of Christmas Present. Benedict and Beatrice Cratchit also make an appearance. Also Christopher Marlowe as Scrooge's former business partner.

[Rebecca Timberlake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pleasant surprise.

I didn't really expect this to be more than a quick three-star read, but it was very well written, and pretty clever in itsrecasting of characters with Shakespeare's men and women. I'd recommend it to any fans of either classic author.

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Ian Doescher's work, and this short piece is no exception. For anyone who loves Shakespeare, you will find delightful allusions liberally strewn throughout this charming retelling of Dickens's classic tale. Fun, witty, and brilliantly executed - a quick, enjoyable read that I highly recommend.

[Dana Cordelia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lovely and clever retelling of A Christmas Carol, starring well-loved characters from Shakespeare's more famous works. More parody than satire but still very sweet. Recommended light holiday read.

[Julieann · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you enjoy , you'll enjoy this version.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Rare Pleasure

Such an imaginative retelling, and written with great talent. I never thought I'd be surprised by this story again - this was an unexpected gift.

[Pers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clever and funny.