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Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol under financial duress, but it became one of his most popular and enduring stories. The old miser Ebenezer Scrooge cares nothing for family, friends, love or Christmas. All he cares about is money. Then one Christmas Eve he is visited by three ghosts: Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet To Come. These encounters leave Scrooge deeply moved and forever changed. Historians believe that A Christmas Carol contributed greatly to the modern sentimental Christmas.
JenniferRobb: Both have male protagonists who experience visions of the past and of the future and whose visions cause a behavioral change. Dickens's work is about Christmas while Kingsbury's is not.
JenniferRobb: Both books look at three different periods in the main characters life. In Dickens it is past, present, and future. In Blount, it is childhood, adulthood, and old age.
Anonymous user: The Greatest Gift is the book that was turned into It's a Wonderful Life, probably the second best Christmas story after A Christmas Carol!
I always need to slow down to read this, to savor every perfect sentence and visualize the beauty of its atmosphere, and cadence of its sounds. I especially love the way Dickens describes the feeling of winter during the times in London. The feeling of walking in England, the feeling of cold. With each reading, I get something more: there is just so much Light in this story. ( )
People don’t realize the chain of events that inspire change in someone’s life from one good deed blooms many it may be a fear of change which can be implied as death that becomes catalyst for a form of illumination ( )
a surprisingly great read.I didn't realize the most recent remake of this novel (the jim carey one) was so much closer to the story than many of the others I've seen. It's spookier and a little darker than I would have thought, but has always had a timeless lesson. ( )
Every child should have this book read to them before ever seeing a movie of it! This picture he paints are so stirring!
“And how did little Tim behave?” asked Mrs Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart’s content.
“As good as gold,” said Bob, “and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. 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.” ( )
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Quotations
"God bless us, every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
"Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!"
Marley was dead: to begin with.
If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is I should like to know him too.
[This is when Scrooge is about to meet the Ghost of Christmas Past. The clock has struck 12 and he's wondering if it's noon or midnight, even though it's dark. He's not hearing people rushing around outside, though. Because the story was first published in 1843, this snark must be about the US depression of 1837-1844.]
... This was a great relief, because 'three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,' and so forth, would have become a mere United States security if there were no days to count by.
[Scrooge is waiting for the Ghost of Christmas Present to show up in his bedroom, which is filled with a ruddy light.]
... and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it.
[This was about bakers leaving their ovens available, for a small fee, for poor people to cook their dinners on Sundays and others wanting those ovens cold on the Sabbath. Scrooge wanted to know why the Ghost of Christmas Present would want to have those ovens closed on Sundays and deprive poor persons of a chance for their one real meal a week.]
'I seek!' exclaimed the Spirit.
'Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,' said Scrooge.
'There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the Spirit, 'who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.'
Last words
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!
This work contains various editions of the unabridged book "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. Please do not combine it with adaptations or abridgments, or with collections that contain additional works.
I am assuming (without any evidence!) that the Puffin children's edition is an adaptation: if you know that it is NOT, please combine with the main work, otherwise leave it be.
Specially edited for reading aloud before an audience.
ISBN 1568461828 is not a DK Eyewitness Classics edition.
ISBN 1580495796 is "Unabridged with glossary and reader's notes." "This Prestwick House edition, is an unabridged republication of A Christmas Carol, published by George Routledge and Sons, London."
Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol under financial duress, but it became one of his most popular and enduring stories. The old miser Ebenezer Scrooge cares nothing for family, friends, love or Christmas. All he cares about is money. Then one Christmas Eve he is visited by three ghosts: Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet To Come. These encounters leave Scrooge deeply moved and forever changed. Historians believe that A Christmas Carol contributed greatly to the modern sentimental Christmas.
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Book description
Filled with description, Charles Dickens writes about the struggles of a poor family and the despicable Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge is a ruthless man who only cares about himself and money. Scrooge's entire character is changed on the night of Christmas Eve when is is visited by three ghosts as he relives parts of his past and his future in order to see what has and would become of him if he does not make a dramatic change in his life. I absolutely love this story and all that it entails. It is somewhat towards the bottom of my list though because some of the description can become a bit daunting as you read this novel.
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Book covers - A Christmas Carol
Wikipedia in English (6)
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