David Perdue's Charles Dickens Page - A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol
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It is interesting to note that the        now famous scene, Bob Cratchit with Tiny Tim on his shoulder, was not illustrated        in the original version.
Clear away! There was nothing they        wouldn't have cleared away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig        looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if        it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept and        watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the        warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you        would desire to see upon a winter's night.
In came a fiddler with a music book,        and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like        fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In        came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young        followers whose hearts they broke.
Sir Roger de Coverley
Hear the music
In 1822 ten year old Dickens moved        with his family to 16 Bayham Street, Camden Town, in London. Dickens would later describe the area "as shabby, dingy, damp and mean a neighborhood        as one would desire to see." He used the house as a model for the home of        the Cratchits in A Christmas Carol. Dickens would later use the house        again as the home of the Micawbers in David        Copperfield .
A Christmas Carol was published during the week before Christmas 1843 and was an instant sensation but, due to the high production costs, Dickens' earning from the sales were lower than expected. In addition to the disappointing profit from the book Dickens was enraged that the work was instantly the victim of pirated editions. Copyright laws in England were often loosely enforced and a complete lack of international copyright law had been Dickens' theme during his trip to America the year before. He ended up spending more money fighting pirated editions of the book than he was making from the book itself .
Dickens called his little Christmas book        a carol; carol being a song or ballad of joy celebrating the birth of Christ.        He carries the pretense further by calling the chapters staves; a stave        being an archaic form of stanza or verse of a song.
He used similar schemes in two subsequent        Christmas books: The Chimes , in which        he called the chapters "quarters" as in the tolling of the clock, and The        Cricket on the Hearth , where the book is divided into "chirps".
At Scrooge's nephew Fred's Christmas party they play blind man's buff, a        popular Victorian parlor game. In this particular game the blind man, Topper,        and Fred team up to allow Topper to be able to see through the blindfold        so that he can catch a lady whom he has his eye on:
"There was first a game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I        no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his        boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge's        nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went        after that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the credulity        of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs,        bumping against the piano, smothering himself among the curtains, wherever        she went, there went he. He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn't        catch anybody else."
Scrooge & Cratchit : An original short        story conceived as a sequel to A Christmas Carol by Matt McHugh
The full text of the story is available free online for individuals to read        and share.
I thoroughly enjoyed it - David Perdue
A Christmas Carol became part of the celebration of Christmas in America due in part to Lionel Barrymore's annual (1931-1954) radio show where he played the Dickensian miser. That role was instrumental in his being cast as Henry F. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life.
My favorite film version of A Christmas Carol is the 1984 made-for-TV        version starring George        C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge. Faithful to Dickens' original with much        of the dialogue lifted right out of the book, this version includes an excellent        cast: Susannah        York , Roger        Rees , David        Warner , and Edward        Woodward , supporting the cranky Scott who is perfect as Scrooge.
The film was shot in locations in and around the town of Shrewsbury,        England and has the gritty look and feel of early nineteenth-century        London. Scrooge's grave from the film can still be seen in the graveyard        of St        Chad's church .
Scrooge's grave at St. Chad's churchyard
William Makepeace Thackeray in Fraser's Magazine (February 1844) pronounced the book, "a national benefit and to every man or woman who reads it, a personal kindness. The last two people I heard speak of it were women; neither knew the other, or the author, and both said, by way of criticism, 'God bless him!'"
Thackeray wrote about Tiny Tim, "There is not a reader in England but that little creature will be a bond of union between the author and him; and he will say of Charles Dickens, as the woman just now, 'GOD BLESS HIM!' What a feeling this is for a writer to inspire, and what a reward to reap!".
Dickens pared down A Christmas Carol for his public readings. Read an annotated version of Dickens' own reading text that can be read in a single sitting!
Praise for the Carol
Dickens' friend and biographer, John Forster, relayed the outpouring of praise from readers Dickens received:
"There poured upon its author daily, all through that Christmas time, letters from complete strangers to him which I remember reading with a wonder of pleasure; not literary at all, but of the simplest domestic kind; of which the general burden was to tell him, amid many confidences, about their homes, how the Carol had come to he read aloud there, and was to be kept upon a little shelf by itself, and was to do them no end of good. Anything more to be said of it will not add much to this."
Charles Dickens & The Ghost Club
The Ghost Club was founded in London in 1862 and, after initially receiving some light-hearted ridicule in the press, Charles Dickens joined the club, lending it a degree of respectability. The club discussed and investigated ghosts and paranormal activities. After Dickens' death in 1870 the club seems to have disolved. It enjoyed a resurgence in the early 1880s and is still in existance today .
Video
Beautifully illustrated anthology of Christmas (2003)
The Spirit at your Elbow
Part of the charm of A Christmas Carol is in the way Dickens addresses the reader, as if he is sitting beside you telling the story:
"The curtains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now  to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow."
A Christmas Carol - Published in one volume - Dec 1843
| Illustrations | Locations
Dickens began writing his "little carol" in October, 1843 finishing it by the end of November in time to be published        for Christmas with illustrations by John        Leech . Feuding with his publishers, Dickens financed the publishing        of the book himself, ordering lavish binding, gilt edging, and hand-colored        illustrations and then setting the price at 5 shillings so that everyone        could afford it. This combination resulted in disappointingly low profits        despite high sales. In the first few days of its release the book sold six        thousand copies and its popularity continued to grow. The first and best        of his Christmas Books, A Christmas Carol has become a Christmas        tradition and easily Dickens' best known book.
See Dickens' printing expenses and profits        for the first year of A Christmas Carol .
Plot (contains spoilers)
Ebenezer Scrooge is a penny-pinching miser        in the first degree. He cares nothing for the people around him and mankind        exists only for the money that can be made through exploitation and intimidation.        He particularly detests Christmas which he views as 'a time for finding        yourself a year older, and not an hour richer'. Scrooge is visited, on Christmas        Eve, by the ghost of his former partner Jacob Marley who died seven Christmas        Eves ago.
Marley, a miser from the same mold as Scrooge, is suffering the consequences        in the afterlife and hopes to help Scrooge avoid his fate. He tells Scrooge        that he will be haunted by three spirits. These three spirits, the ghosts of Christmas past, present,
and future, succeed in showing Scrooge the error of his ways. His glorious        reformation complete, Christmas morning finds Scrooge sending a Christmas        turkey to his long-suffering clerk, Bob Cratchit, and spending Christmas        day in the company of his nephew, Fred, whom he had earlier spurned.
Scrooge's new-found benevolence continues as he raises Cratchit's salary        and vows to assist his family, which includes Bob's crippled son, Tiny Tim.        In the end Dickens reports that Scrooge became ' as good a friend, as good        a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew'.
Characters:
John Leech provided eight illustrations        for A Christmas Carol. Four woodcuts and four hand colored etchings:
     
Select an image to see a larger version
A Christmas Carol: The Films and the Players
Year
Colin Firth
Fifteen Bob a Week
The miserly Scrooge paid his clerk, Bob        Cratchit, a weekly salary of fifteen shillings (cockney slang for shilling        was "bob"). Bob "pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian        name."
According to C. Z. Barnett in his play A Christmas Carol or The Miser's        Warning (1844) Cratchit would have spent a week's wages to buy the ingredients        for the Christmas feast: seven shillings for the goose, five for the pudding,        and three for the onions, sage and oranges.
Ignorance and Want
One major theme in A Christmas Carol was rooted in Dickens' observations of the plight of the children of London's        poor. It has been said of the times that sex was the only affordable pleasure        for the poor; the result was thousands of children living in unimaginable        poverty, filth, and disease.
In 1839 it was estimated that nearly half of        all funerals in London were for children under the age of ten. Those who        survived grew up without education or resource and virtually no chance to        escape the cycle of poverty. Dickens felt that this cycle of poverty could        only be broken through education and became interested in the Ragged        Schools in London.
Ragged Schools were free schools, run through charity, in which the poorest        children received religious instruction and a rudimentary education. Dickens        generally applauded the work of these schools although he disapproved of        introducing religious doctrine at the expense of a practical education which        would help the pupil become a self-sufficient member of society. Despite        the availability of these schools, most poor children remained uneducated        due to the demand for child labor and the apathy of parents, wretchedly        poor and uneducated themselves.
Dickens introduces these children in A Christmas Carol through the        allegorical twins, Ignorance and Want. The Ghost of Christmas Present shows        them, wretched and almost animal in appearance, to Scrooge with the warning: "This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of        their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that        written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."
Dickens continued to support education for the poor through his works but        compulsory education for all did not come about until 1870, the year of        Dickens' death.
The Death of Tiny Tim
Of all the affecting scenes from A Christmas        Carol none touches the heart more than the death of the crippled        Tiny Tim, foreshadowed to Scrooge by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come,
especially to Victorian readers. Large families and child mortality were        common in the 19th century and many readers may have suffered firsthand        the loss of a child.
Michael Patrick Hearn, in his book The        Annotated Christmas Carol , reports that one observer of a public        reading by Dickens of A Christmas Carol in Boston in 1867 noted        that the passage of Tiny Tim's death "brought out so many pocket handkerchiefs        that it looked as if a snow-storm had somehow gotten into the hall without        tickets."
Dead as a Doornail
Dickens begins A Christmas Carol by impressing upon the reader that Jacob Marley was dead. In fact, he was "dead as a doornail." He goes on to question this well-known simile:
"Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery  in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors  is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail."
The phrase "dead as a doornail" appears as early as the fourteenth-century in The Vision of Piers Plowman and later in Shakespeareâ€™s Henry IV. However, the origin of the phrase is unknown. One possible explanation is that doors were built using only wood boards and hand forged nails, the nails were long enough to dead nail the (vertical)
wooden panels and (horizontal) stretcher boards securely together, so they would not easily pull apart. This was done by pounding the protruding point of the nail over and down into the wood. A nail that was bent in this fashion (and thus not easily pulled out) was said to be "dead", thus "dead as a doornail." [ Wiktionary ]
Sabbatarianism
Sabbatarianism, the Christian doctrine        of strict observance of Sunday as a holy day reserved for worship, was attacked        by Dickens throughout his life.
In        1836 he published the pamphlet Sunday        Under Three Heads in opposition to a Bill that would have extended        already strict limitations to Sunday recreation. Dickens felt that these        Bills were an attempt by the upper classes to control the lives of the lower        classes disguised as religious piety. He argued that Sunday was the only        day that the poor and working classes could enjoy simple pleasures that        the upper and middle classes enjoyed all week. In A Christmas Carol Dickens again voices these concerns through this exchange between Scrooge        and the Ghost of Christmas Present:
"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I wonder you, of all        the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's        opportunities of innocent enjoyment."
"I!" cried the Spirit.
"You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often        the only day on which they can be said to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't        you?"
"I!" cried the Spirit.
"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day," said Scrooge. "And        it comes to the same thing."
"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."
A Christmas Carol Stave 3
Condensed from A Christmas Carol - Stave 3.
Cooking the Cratchit's Christmas Goose
The homes of the poor were equipped with open fireplaces for heat and cooking        but not with ovens. Thus many, like the Cratchits, took their Christmas        goose or turkey to the baker's shop. Bakers were forbidden to sell on Sundays        and holidays but would open their shops on these days to the poor and bake        their dinners for a small fee. Dickens tells of Master Peter Cratchit and        the two younger Cratchits going to fetch their Christmas goose from the        bakers.
Actress Liz Smith (Born: Betty Gleadle December 11, 1921 in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, England) has the distinction of playing Mrs Dilber in two versions of A Christmas Carol: the 1984 version starring George C. Scott , and the 1999 version starring Patrick Stewart .
Preface to the Original Edition
A Christmas Carol
I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an        Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with        each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly,        and no one wish to lay it.
Their faithful Friend and Servant,
C. D.