Christmas Carol

English language

Published Nov. 21, 2009

ISBN:
978-0-14-132452-4
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5 stars (1 review)

A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. A Christmas Carol recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man. Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol during a period when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols, and newer customs such as Christmas cards and Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth and by the Christmas stories of other authors, including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, and …

28 editions

Essential Christmas reading

5 stars

In my teenage years, I loved to explore second-hand bookshops with their seemingly random piles of previously loved books making it hard to squeeze between the overloaded bookcases. One winter, I bought a 1902 edition of "The Pickwick Papers" in two pocket-sized volumes. It was my introduction to Dickens, and I loved the crisp, browned pages and old-fashioned fonts, the humour, and the author's fantastic powers of description.

"The Pickwick Papers" firmly cemented the idea that Dickens was Christmas into my brain, and books like "Great Expectations" and "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" only reinforced the sentiment. I don't know when I first read "A Christmas Carol", but it was many decades ago, and I've basked in its glories most years since. It's my favourite of Dicken's Christmas ghost tales and an essential part of my festivities.

The most impressive aspect of this book is the imagery. Dickens's descriptions of …