Concept
A Christmas Carol
Overview
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. It 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. In the process, 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 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 was inspired following a visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, one of several establishments for London's street children. The treatment of the poor and the ability of a selfish man to redeem himself by transforming into a more sympathetic character are the key themes of the story. There is discussion among academics as to whether this is a fully secular story or a Christian allegory.
Published on 19 December, the first edition sold out by Christmas Eve; by the end of 1844 thirteen editions had been released. Most critics reviewed the novella favourably. The story was illicitly copied in January 1844; Dickens took legal action against the publishers, who went bankrupt, further reducing Dickens's small profits from the publication. He subsequently wrote four other Christmas stories. In 1849 he began public readings of the story, which proved so successful he undertook 127 further performances until 1870, the year of his death. A Christmas Carol has never been out of print and has been translated into several languages; the story has been adapted many times for film, stage, opera and other media.
A Christmas Carol captured the zeitgeist of the early Victorian revival of the Christmas holiday. Dickens acknowledged the influence of the modern Western observance of Christmas and later inspired several aspects of Christmas, including family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games and a festive generosity of spirit.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
This wise and glorious Bird, that has been sent to us by the King, is called Phoenix; he dwells far off in Arabia, on a tree, which there is no other that resembles on Earth, as in like manner there is no second Phoenix. When he feels himself grown old, he builds a pile of balm and incense, kindles it, and dies singing; and then from the fragrant ashes, soars up the renewed Phoenix with unlessened beauty. It is…
Thomas Carlyle, Translations from the German
States what A Christmas Carol is; the author is tied to A Christmas Carol in the knowledge graph.
Companionship in incurable malady, a touching bond of union, was by no means purely or chiefly a companionship in misery in their case. The sunniest inextinguishable cheerfulness shone, through all manner of clouds, in both. Calvert had been travelling physician in some family of rank, who had rewarded him with a pension, shielding his own ill-health from one sad evil. Being hopelessly gone in pulmonary disorder, he…
Thomas Carlyle, Life of John Sterling
The author is tied to A Christmas Carol in the knowledge graph.
The feast of the Circumcision, which the church celebrates on the first of January, has taken the place of another called the Feast of the Calends, of Asses, of Fools, or of Innocents, according to the different places where, and the different days on which, it was held. It was most commonly at Christmas, the Circumcision, or the Epiphany. In the cathedral of Rouen there was on Christmas day a procession, in which…
Voltaire, A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 02
Close in meaning to A Christmas Carol; the term itself is not named.
Related ideas
- G. K. Chesterton
- Thomas Carlyle
- Industrial Revolution
- James Joyce
- Great Depression
- BBC
- New Testament
- Oxford English Dictionary
- Pittsburgh
- The New York Times
- Thomas Robert Malthus
- Victorian era
- Altruism
- Washington Irving
- Zeitgeist
- Charles Dickens
- American Civil War
Place in the tradition
Part of Fundamentalism.