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Loading... A Christmas Carol (Great Stories) (original 1843; edition 1999)
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Information from the Italian Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language. | |
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| Epigraph |
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| Dedication |
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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.  | |
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"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.' | |
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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! (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.) | |
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| Disambiguation notice |
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." ISBN 1857159284 is an Everyman's Library Children's Classics edition of A Christmas Carol. | |
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