Title :A Christmas Carol in Prose 

By - Charles Dickens

Publishing Info: -- first published in 1843 

Genre: -Short Story // Novella

Sub-genre: -Fantasy

Nationality: -British

Time Period: -19th Century (Victorian)

First and Last Read by Dr. Rearick - Dec. 1975-Jan. 2008

Rated: - A+

Location: -Rearick Library, Office J-Drive

From the "Preface"

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.

Comments: Of all the works of literature I've read this is the one most precious to me. It may be because I have always been strongly connected with the holiday itself. (If you want to know more about that and other Christmas stuff, click here.) Be it as it may, one of the reasons I was drawn to Dickens to do my doctorate dissertation was because I felt an affinity with him about Christmas.

If I were told I could only have two books where I was going, one would be the Bible but the other one would be Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." This may surprise many because--especially the way many remember it--the Christmas Carol seems like holiday sentimentalism. Pleasant to read but hardly thought provoking. I would suggest to you that this misunderstanding of Dickens' work comes from popular portrayals of the story. It is, in fact, one of the most profoundly "Christian works" in the literary cannon. Click here to read my essay "A Christian Carol in Prose." This has recently been re-done as a series of Sunday School lessons with PowerPoints, handouts, and HTML text.

Dickens Christian Carol in Prose

Students might be interested to know that some scholars have credited Dickens with this one work of re-vitalizing the whole holiday which because of the industrial revolution and because of protestant anti-catholic leanings had fallen into inobservance.

Still other Christmas traditions were also springing forth at the same time.  The first Christmas Cards were published in England the same year.  And Queen Victoria to make her German born husband Prince Albert feel more comfortable instituted the tradition of the Christmas Tree in Buckingham Palace not long afterwards.  Thus, it is more likely that Dickens instinctively rode a wave of popular feeling of which he was if not the cause at least a major expression.  This was so much so that he became a major proponent of what he called "The Carol Philosophy" and regularly made Christmas (right through to 12th Night) a major part of his colander.  He wrote a Christmas story every year after that which became a favorite among his readers.  

In an apocryphal story, it was said when he died in 1870 a child lamented "Mr. Dickens Dead?  Then is Father Christmas dead too?"

One side note that many American readers do not realize is that Dickens uses a British tradition of telling Ghost Stories at Christmas time. He comments about this overtly in A Christmas Tree. Americans are used to thinking of Halloween as the only time for such tales but forget that Halloween as we celebrate it actually exists only within our own borders.