Synopses & Reviews
A Christmas Carol has gripped the public imagination since it was first published in 1843, and it is now as much a part of the holiday season as is mistletoe or Santa's reindeer. Here is a wonderful collection of Dickens' Christmas stories, graced with many of the original drawings that
appeared in the first edition. Pride of place goes to A Christmas Carol, of course, but the book also includes four other marvelous tales: The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man. All five stories show Dickens at his unpredictable best, jumbling together
comedy and melodrama, genial romance and urgent social satire. The volume also features an excellent introduction by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, who offers invaluable background to the Christmas stories, illuminating the social questions they address, outlining their reception and the enduring
popularity of A Christmas Carol, and highlighting how their style and themes resonate in more complex ways in his major fictions. In addition, the book includes two appendices containing Dickens's article, What Christmas Is As We Grow Older, and facsimile pages from Dickens's reading version of
A Christmas Carol.
Synopsis
An immediate bestseller when it was first published in 1843, "A Christmas Carol" has endured ever since as a perennial Yuletide favorite. This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition also includes two other popular Christmas stories by Dickens: "The Chimes and "The Haunted Man.
Synopsis
Dickens’ most beloved story,
A Christmas Carol is as much a part of Christmas as mistletoe and carolers—and with “A Christmas Tree,” “Christmas Dinner,” as well as the Christmas chapters from
The Pickwick Papers, this collection is a perfect gift.
Synopsis
Dickensa most beloved story, aA Christmas Carola is as much a part of Christmas as mistletoe and carolersaand with aA Christmas Tree, a aChristmas Dinner, a as well as the Christmas chapters from The Pickwick Papers, this collection is a perfect gift.
Synopsis
Dicken's most beloved story, A Christmas Carol, is as much a part of Christmas as mistletoe and carolers. This heartwarming tale continues to stir in us the same feelings of repentance, forgiveness, and love that transformed Ebenezer Scrooge.
About the Author
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He died in Kent on June 9, 1870. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know not only hunger and privation,but also the horror of the infamous debtors prison and the evils of child labor. A turn of fortune in the shape of a legacy brought release from the nightmare of prison and “slave” factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years formal schooling at Wellington House Academy. He worked as an attorneys clerk and newspaper reporter until his Sketches by Boz (1836) and The Pickwick Papers (1837) brought him the amazing and instant success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. In later years, the pressure of serial writing, editorial duties, lectures, and social commitments led to his separation from Catherine Hogarth after twenty-three years of marriage. It also hastened his death at the age of fifty-eight, when he was characteristically engaged in a multitude of work.