A Christmas Carol
1843
- children's fiction
- christmas, fiction
- christmas
- drama
- ghosts
- british and irish fiction (fictional works by one author)
- london (england), fiction
- scrooge, ebenezer (fictitious character), fiction
- christmas stories
- ghost stories
The story
A reprinting of the 1843 first edition, complete with the original illustrations, is supplemented by over eighty related sketches and annotations on and analyses of the text and historical notes on the writing of "The Christmas Carol."
What it’s like
Dense Victorian prose with the chill of a cold London winter on every page: fog-thick streets, smoky counting-house gloom, the sudden warmth of a crowded kitchen, and the hush of a candlelit bedroom when the ghosts arrive. The original 1843 illustrations, reproduced here alongside a scatter of sketches and marginal annotations, give the book a hand-engraved, woodcut-style texture that suits slow, attentive reading. The voice is wry, chatty and theatrical, the narrator often stepping forward to address the reader, so the mood swings between cosy and eerie within a single paragraph. Sentences build in rolling, rhythmic clauses, and the pacing is brisk in the ghostly set pieces and unhurried in the domestic scenes. Its emotional register is sentimental and bracing, moving from bitterness toward generosity in an old man's gradual thaw. The violence is absent and the fear is mild, limited to chains, a silent phantom and a grim child-shaped vision. Ideal for a snowy evening with a mug of something hot, or for readers who love annotated classics and the history behind a much-loved story.
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