Introducing our Book of the Month for December 2011

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens








Charles Dickens is much loved for his great contribution to classic English literature. He was the quintessential Victorian author. His epic stories, vivid characters and exhaustive depiction of contemporary life are unforgettable.


A Christmas Carol is a novella first published 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim.











Book Details

Paperback: 110 pages
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1456407872
ISBN-13: 978-1456407872


Ebook on Amazon.com is currently $0.00


Also on Project Gutenberg - A Christmas Carol is free



Book Now open for discussion - beware SPOILERS will apply

Happy Christmas reading.

I have an audiobook version of this read by Patrick Stewart that hubby got for me last Christmas, so I'm happy to listen again as the time gets closer. He chose that one because years ago, we saw Stewart perform a one-man show of A Christmas Carol on Broadway on New Year's Eve (sometime in the 90's, but I can't recall which year). It was excellent.

I have seen practically every version of ACC, but have never read it. The musical with Albert Finney is my favorite, BTW. I look forward to finally reading it.

I, too, am looking forward to reading it for the first time!

I love Love this book. I used to read it every year to my children in the month of December.
The part that really always got us was when marley untied the kerchief from around his head and jaw that kept his mouth closed (( eeewwww))

Today is the 21st, so I listened to this story this morning and I assume it's OK to start a bit of discussion.

Patrick Stewart did a great job of making this a fun listen. He does all the different voices and sounds like the bells.

So did helping Scrooge to change his ways help Marley in any way? Did it reduce the size of his chains or something? Otherwise, did he just do it because the spirits stuck watching get so frustrated with their inability to help people on earth that he took the one chance he was given to help? I was thinking about that today, because clearly Marley must have been much like Scrooge during his lifetime.

The nephew, Fred, seemed to have a lot of patience inviting Scrooge every year (or maybe just planning to?) despite being turned down so strongly. Speaking of Fred, in the yet-to-come scenes, it seems like Fred would have prepared a funeral for Scrooge, so much as he wasn't much liked, he wouldn't have been without anyone to care/have him buried respectfully.

It was nice to view the steady progress as Scrooge went through his transformation. And, it was funny how he thought of the boy at the end as such a dear boy, when he wasn't being especially charming. ;-)

I had forgotten that the ghost of Christmas yet to come never actually speaks, so Scrooge has to figure everything out for himself.

I wonder what caused Scrooge to become so greedy when he seemed so normal and happy when he worked for Mr. Fezziwig (sp?) and he apparently had a girlfriend/fiancee. We don't get to see his partnership with Marley or how he became the "scrooge" that he was. Obviously, he had a terrible childhood - except for his sister - but if he had stayed with Fezziwig he could have turned out differently.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun to re-listen to this classic story, especially at this time of year.

It's been a Christmas tradition since my daughter was 3 to go to the Trinity Reperatory Company's production of this story but I haven't once read it until now. It's amazing that a story written in 1843 still resonates with us in 2012. The productions that I've seen of it are different every year. Some years were Victorian traditional, one year it had a Rhode Island theme with landmarks and local celebrities, another year we had a very Avante Guard director who did the whole play behind large gauzy curtains with masks on them and the actors most in shadow (we wished him well when he moved on to Broadway). But the point is that it can be seen from so many angles and directions besides those of C.D.

What amazed me was how close to the actual script of the book that many of the televised and stage productions have been to the original word. That was unexpected.



In several of the productions but not the book, it was said that Scrooge's mother died in childbirth with him and his father couldn't bear to look at him and sent him away to boys' homes to live. When his sister Fan comes to take him home, it is only for the holiday and then he is apprenticed out to Fezziwig. Scrooge becomes obsessed with becoming independent.

Another part that I've seen in productions but not in the book was that Scrooge and Marley bankrupted Fezziwig to start their business. Good question about the chains but I had the impression that it was to save Scrooge from ending up as Marley had rather than reducing Marley's sentence.

ABL, I didn't think about his nephew taking care of his funeral but I think that all of the ransacking happened as soon as he died and probably before Fred could get there to make arrangements. After all, who would be there to let Fred know, certainly not the servants! They could go to town before he arrived and Fred would have been none the wiser since he and Scrooge rarely socialized.

The story is timeless and a wonderful book to read at this time of year.

I think the assumptions about Scrooge's mother and bankrupting Fezziwig might very well make sense as explanations, but it's interesting that directors/scriptwriters put that in plays when it wasn't explicit in Dickens' original version.

And, you're certainly right about the servants not rushing to tell Fred about Scrooge's death, but by the time people were discussing it in the street (as Scrooge observes), presumably Fred would have heard too, right?

- I am a day late in opening the discussion - glad it's been enjoyed so much..


It's a timeless classic and is something of a traditional read for me at this time of year.....even though the story was written in 1843, it still remains just as relevant today, and I am sure that there many Scrooge's still around.

Dickens used the image of Scrooge as a social commentary - the Victorian era was a time of great change, the industrial revolution meant that the country experienced great wealth, and also great poverty in equal measure - the social divide between the haves and the have nots were beautifully exampled by Scrooge, as he lived in isolated splendour, pitted against the backdrop of the Cratchits who were poor, but happy, safe in the knowledge that they were loved -

Scrooge's unkind remark that poor people should die and " reduce the surplus population " is a continuing theme within the story...Dickens very cleverly illustrated the need for philanthropy and social reform..