A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

by Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

by Charles Dickens

Paperback(Mass Market Paperback - Enriched Classic)

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Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

A timeless classic, A Christmas Carol has surely kept many children off the naughty list. Ebenezer Scrooge has become an iconic character, one whose story of change will inspire others to act kind towards all.

Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.

In this classic, heart-warming tale, four ghostly guests teach valuable lessons to an old miser. Ebenezer Scrooge, a selfish, crotchety skinflint, spends his days counting money and grousing, “Bah Humbug!” Scrooge doesn’t care for anyone other than himself. However, on Christmas Eve, he is visited by his partner Marley, and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come, who teach him about benevolence, charity, and goodwill.

Enriched Classics enhance your engagement by introducing and explaining the historical and cultural significance of the work, the author’s personal history, and what impact this book had on subsequent scholarship. Each book includes discussion questions that help clarify and reinforce major themes and reading recommendations for further research.

Read with confidence.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781416534785
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 10/09/2007
Series: Enriched Classics
Edition description: Enriched Classic
Pages: 160
Sales rank: 659,107
Product dimensions: 4.19(w) x 6.75(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

About The Author
Charles Dickens was born in 1812 near Portsmouth where his father was a clerk in the navy pay office. The family moved to London in 1823, but their fortunes were severely impaired. Dickens was sent to work in a blacking-warehouse when his father was imprisoned for debt. Both experiences deeply affected the future novelist. In 1833, he began contributing stories to newspapers and magazines, and in 1836 started the serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Thereafter, Dickens published his major novels over the course of the next twenty years, from Nicholas Nickleby to Little Dorrit. He also edited the journals Household Words and All the Year Round. Dickens died in June 1870.

Date of Birth:

February 7, 1812

Date of Death:

June 18, 1870

Place of Birth:

Portsmouth, England

Place of Death:

Gad's Hill, Kent, England

Education:

Home-schooling; attended Dame School at Chatham briefly and Wellington

Read an Excerpt

Introduction

A Christmas Carol:

The Spirit of Christmas

From "Bah! Humbug!" to "God bless us, every one," Dickens's holiday classic, its characters, and even their dialogue embody the spirit of Christmas. A Christmas Carol has become such a part of modern American and British culture that it would be difficult to find anyone unfamiliar with its story or with the characters of Tiny Tim and Scrooge. The Carol is practically a manual for Christmas, with its depictions of playing games, adorning rooms with festive decorations, and enjoying a turkey feast. Not only does the tale inform certain traditions but it is also a tradition in itself. Indeed, many people would not find their Christmas complete without watching performances of the Carol on stage, on television, or at the cinema.

Little did Dickens know when he finished A Christmas Carol after just six weeks of feverish writing that this brief story would become one of his most famous works. Though the story was successful as soon as it was published on December 19, 1843, Dickens bolstered its renown further by choosing to perform it aloud when he began touring in 1853. His name became synonymous with Christmas in England to the extent that, after his death in 1870, some feared the holiday would become culturally obsolete. Nothing could have been further from the truth — the story itself spawned an endless parade of adaptations and interpretations, from musicals to cartoons to comedies, and the holiday it celebrates has never been more popular.

Charles Dickens is perhaps best remembered for his efforts to draw attention to the plight of the poor at the dawn of the modern era. His Great Expectations and Oliver Twist, two masterpieces of English literature, led to the coinage of a new word, Dickensian, to describe something particularly harsh, bleak, or wretched. But as large as that literary legacy may be, Dickens is most beloved for this book, his gift to the poor and affluent alike: a template for a warm, loving, charitable, and thankful family holiday.

The Life and Work of Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was one of the nineteenth century's most prolific and respected novelists. The second child of John Dickens and Elizabeth Barrow, he was born February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, England. When he was five years old, the family moved to Chatham on the southern coast of England, where they would spend the next six years. In 1823, the Dickens family moved again, to London. When Charles was twelve, his father was imprisoned for debt, remaining incarcerated for three months. During that time, Charles's family lived in debtors' prison with his father, leaving Charles largely on his own. He worked at Warren's Blacking factory, gluing labels to bottles of shoe polish, finding himself very poor and often hungry. Young Charles was tormented by the thought that his parents had abandoned him to this hard life. Dickens's time as a child laborer left a permanent, traumatic impression on him; he did not discuss this ordeal publicly, but it surfaced in his fiction. His sympathetic descriptions of Tiny Tim and of Scrooge as a boy spurned by his father in A Christmas Carol reveal his deep compassion for poor, abandoned, or neglected children.

Dickens attended school at the Wellington House Academy in London until he was fifteen, but primarily he educated himself at the library of the British Museum in London. Before becoming a writer he worked as a law clerk, a shorthand reporter, and a news reporter; his fictional writing drew extensively from these experiences. His first published novel, The Pickwick Papers (serialized starting in 1836), a lighthearted and popular work, established the young writer's reputation and raised readers' expectations. He went on to serialize what would become some of his lengthier novels: Oliver Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840), and Barnaby Rudge (1841). In 1842, he traveled with his wife, Catherine, to America, where he enjoyed immense popularity. He wrote a partially critical account of his observations on his trip, American Notes for General Circulation (1842), which offended many readers and critics, who became defensive about their country.

When a report exposing exploitive child labor practices in England was released in 1842, Dickens made a special trip to Cornwall, where he could see for himself the horrible environment child mine workers endured. His wealthy friend and philanthropist Baroness Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts requested his opinion of her sponsoring the Ragged Schools of Field Lane, Holborn — free schools for the poor — so he visited them and wrote to her, "I have very seldom seen...anything so shocking as the dire neglect of soul and body exhibited in these children." His sympathy for the poor and outrage at public indifference toward poor children inspired him to write A Christmas Carol in Prose, which he published at his own expense on December 19, 1843. It became so popular that he followed with other Christmas stories such as The Chimes (1844), The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man (1848).

Dickens would next write his most autobiographical novel, David Copperfield (starting in 1849). With the publication of Bleak House (1852), he entered what many call his "late period," writing a series of darkly pessimistic novels such as Little Dorrit (1857) and what would become his most popular novel, Great Expectations (1860). In 1858, just as he was separating from Catherine, he began an extensive tour of public readings in London and would eventually travel to Paris, Scotland, Ireland, and America for appearances and readings. His health declined seriously in the next decade, partly as a result of his busy work schedule. In 1870, he collapsed during a public reading in England, just after an American lecture tour. Dickens died from a stroke shortly thereafter. His last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, was in serialization at the time and remained unfinished.

Historical and Literary Context of A Christmas Carol

Christmas in Victorian England

Just a few decades before A Christmas Carol was written, the celebration of Christmas in England had become almost obsolete. Christmas was once a lavishly celebrated holiday, with festivals that combined pagan customs and Christian symbolism in masques (a dramatic performance usually by actors in masks), plays, and other traditions. After Puritans took control of England during the seventeenth century, celebrations of Christmas were outlawed. The holiday was revived when the monarchy was restored in the eighteenth century, but it was not as elaborate as it had been in the past.

During the years leading up to the publication of A Christmas Carol in 1843, however, the holiday was enjoying a renaissance in England. Ten years earlier, William Sandys published Selection of Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern (1833), a collection of Christmas songs that would become extremely popular and incite a tradition of caroling in England. Thomas K. Hervey published a scholarly history of Christmas in The Book of Christmas three years later. Britain's young Queen Victoria married the German Prince Albert in 1840, who popularized many Christmas traditions of his native country, such as the Christmas tree, in his wife's homeland. In 1843, the same year A Christmas Carol was published, Sir Henry Cole commissioned the first Christmas card from John C. Horsley. It was a three-paneled drawing with a simple Christmas scene in which a family enjoys a dinner celebration in the center with the caption "A Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year to you" with a small space for the name of the sender. Dickens's short novel would further promote and solidify these and other Christmas traditions in both English and American culture.

Poverty: The Poor Laws and the Workhouse

At the time of the publication of A Christmas Carol, England was still coming to terms with the Industrial Revolution. Technological innovations had shifted the basis of England's economy from agriculture to industry between 1750 and 1850. The development of steam power and a boom in the cotton textiles industry caused a population shift from rural to urban areas. New steam-powered railroads and ships broadened the market for England's output. Laborers were more at the mercy of their employers than ever before, and working conditions in factories, mines, and mills were often brutal. Children and adults alike commonly worked as much as sixteen hours a day, six days a week in dangerous conditions for very small wages. England went through particularly severe growing pains during the 1830s and 1840s. An economic depression in the early 1840s led to widespread unemployment and riots.

In 1834, the Poor Law Amendment Act completely overturned previous methods of aiding the poor that had been in place for over two centuries. Before the poor laws were amended, parishes were required to feed, clothe, or otherwise financially support the poor in what was called "outdoor relief." The poor laws replaced outdoor relief with mandatory rules that the poor who received aid must receive "indoor relief," and to live in workhouses, or government-run shelters provided in exchange for work. The conditions in these workhouses were so grim and at times so unbearable that some preferred to starve on the streets.

Dickens, having spent a few months in a workhouse with his family when his father was sent to one, fiercely opposed the practice. His fiction, essays, and letters often reflect this view. Clearly Dickens's critical attitudes about both the poor laws and the workhouse show transparently in the narrative, as does his belief that a person's wealth is not a reflection of his character.

Supplementary materials copyright © 2007 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHRONOLOGY OF CHARLES DICKENS'S LIFE AND WORK

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF A Christmas Carol

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

PREFACE

STAVE ONE: MARLEY'S GHOST

STAVE TWO: THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS

STAVE THREE: THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS

STAVE FOUR: THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS

STAVE FIVE: THE END OF IT

NOTES

INTERPRETIVE NOTES

CRITICAL EXCERPTS

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INTERESTED READER

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"A sure-fire tear-jerker. At one public reading by Dickens in Boston, there were 'so many pocket handkerchiefs it looked as if a snowstorm had gotten into the hall.'"  —Sunday Express

"It has it all: a spooky ghost story, a heartwarming redemption, and a great plot with a satisfyingly ending."  —Times

Reading Group Guide

This reading group guide for An Atlas of Impossible Longing includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

INTRODUCTION

In this reimagining of Charles Dickens’s classic, Great Expectations, Pip is an orphaned young werewolf living with his ill-tempered sister and her gentle husband, the blacksmith Joe Gargery. One fateful night, visiting his parents’ grave under the full moon, Pip encounters a frightening stranger—another werewolf and a convict no less. Too afraid to do anything other than obey the stranger’s instruction, Pip helps this convict and sets in motion of chain of events that will forever change the course of his life. Pip is sent to reside with Miss Havisham, a vampire who was sired and left on her wedding day by the one she loved. She has adopted Estella and raised her as a vampire slayer, to seek revenge on the supernatural creatures that she blames for her ruin. Pip, in awe of Estella’s beauty, falls instantly in love with her despite the fact that she has been trained to hate all “Scapegraces.” When an anonymous benefactor sends Pip to London to become a gentleman, he believes it is his chance to win Estella’s hand. The question that lies ahead is whether Pip will be able to overcome his wolfish ways and turn his once grave expectations for himself into great ones.

TOPICS AND QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. In Pip’s world, the term “Scapegraces” is used to define “those of a supernatural sort” (p. 11). What do you think this term implies about the way that creatures like werewolves and vampires were viewed in this society?

2. On page 12, Pip wonders, “Was it a crime to merely be different?” While being a werewolf is simply a condition inherited at birth, vampires prey on the living to increase their population, and yet are “considered civilized and welcome to mix in society.” Is one creature more monstrous than the other? Do both werewolves and vampires have the capacity for good and evil?

3. After being invited to Miss Havisham’s and then later learning of his anonymous benefactor, Pip often feels ashamed of his roots, and of Joe’s commonness even more so than his own Scapegrace status. Yet Joe never seems to exhibit any embarrassment over Pip’s wolfishness. What does this say about each of their characters? What influences the focus of Pip’s shame?

4. When Mrs. Joe dies (the first time), Pip finds what he knows to be evidence of Magwitch’s crime, but he still does not accuse him. Why do you think Pip believes that Magwitch is innocent of this crime when the main piece of evidence points directly to him?

5. Throughout most of the story, Estella is cold-hearted and shows no affection for Pip despite his unwavering love for her. Why should he love someone who could possibly end up killing him in her crusade against Scapegraces? What makes him fall in love with her in the first place? Why do you think Pip continues to pursue someone who will never return his feelings?

6. Pip and Herbert have a very special friendship. Do you think this brotherly love grew out of the wolfish need to be part of a pack? Or something more human?

7. While Miss Havisham is herself a vampire, she has trained Estella in the ways of vampire slaying. Pip wonders “if Miss Havisham weren’t really wishing to be staked by Estella one day in raising her to such an art” (p. 235). Do you agree? Do you think Miss Havisham’s eventual outcome either supports or refutes this opinion? Why does Estella never stake her, if indeed her mission is to kill vampires?

8. Pip is horrified when he finds out the Magwitch has been his anonymous benefactor all along. Why do you think this revelation is so abhorrent to Pip, when he seems so willing to not only protect Magwitch and keep him safe, but to also protect his feelings by not revealing his disappointment?

9. On page 284, Pip explains to Miss Havisham that there are certain Scapegraces who “showed more humanity than the humans.” Discuss which of the Scapegraces behave with the utmost humanity, and which of the human characters exhibit what could be categorized as monstrous behavior?

10. How does the discovery of Estella’s parentage change things for Pip? Does it change your opinion of her?

11. Why is it so easy for Joe and Biddy to forgive Pip after he had neglected them for so many years? Should Joe have been angry that Pip spent so much time visiting Magwitch after he was captured, when he never kept up his visits to Joe like he had promised?

12. Though Estella is able to eventually see the goodness in werewolves, she never changes her opinion of vampires. Why do you think she can pardon and accept most Scapegraces and still seek vengeance against vampires?

ENHANCE YOUR BOOK CLUB

1. Grave Expectations is a reimagining of Charles Dickens’s classic Great Expectations. Have you read Great Expectations before? If so, how did the supernatural version compare to the classic? What remained the same in this new version of the story? What changed? If not, choose Great Expectations for your next book club pick.

2. Grave Expectations is a literary mash-up—where a fictional classic is retold in present day or with mythical substitutions. Examples include Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or the movie Clueless, which was essentially Jane Austen’s Emma set in Beverly Hills during the 1990s. Try creating a literary mash-up of your own with your book club. Pick a favorite classic and retell the story as though it took place in the present day or with some supernatural characters. The more imaginative, the better!

3. Legends of werewolves and vampires have been carried down through the centuries. How does their depiction in this work compare with your preconceived notions of such supernatural creatures?

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