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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9dB9BZWDBU

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Charles Dickens is one of the greatest novelists of the Victorian era. His novella A Christmas Carol is considered by many to be one of the great Christmas stories ever written. It's been popular since its first publication in 1843. Dozens of movies have been made of the story along with countless stage reproductions. Even the Muppets took a turn acting out this story for the silver screen with Micheal Caine starring in the 1992 movie. While the story does include an element of the paranormal it is a family friendly tale with a great moral.

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Charles Dickens is one of the greatest novelists of the Victorian era. His novella A Christmas Carol is considered by many to be one of the great Christmas stories ever written. It's been popular since its first publication in 1843. Dozens of movies have been made of the story along with countless stage reproductions. Even the Muppets took a turn acting out this story for the silver screen with Micheal Caine starring in the 1992 movie. While the story does include an element of the paranormal it is a family friendly tale with a great moral.

Setting and Storyline

This short tale takes place on Christmas Eve when Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by three spirits. Scrooge's name has become synonymous with not only greed but a hatred of Christmas cheer. He's portrayed at the start of the show as a man who only cares for money. His business partner Jacob Marley died years earlier and the closest things to a friend he has is his employee Bob Cratchit. Even though his nephew invites him to Christmas dinner, Scrooge refuses, preferring to be alone.

That night Scrooge is visited by the ghost of Marley who warns him that he will be visited by three spirits. Marley's soul has been condemned to hell for his greed but he hopes the spirits will be able to save Scrooge. The first is the ghost of Christmas past who takes Scrooge on a journey through the Christmas's of his childhood first with his younger sister then with his first employer Fezziwig. His first employer is the exact opposite of Scrooge. He loves Christmas and people, Scrooge is reminded of how much fun he had during those years.

The second spirit is the ghost of Christmas Present, who takes Scrooge on a tour of his nephew and Bob Cratchit's holiday. We learn that Bob has a sickly son named Tiny Tim and that Scrooge pays him so little the Cratchit family lives in near poverty. Even though the family has many reasons to be unhappy, Scrooge sees that their love and kindness towards each other brightens even the hardest of situations. As he grows to care for Tiny Time he is warned that the future does not look bright for the little boy.

When the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come arrives things take a bleak turn. Scrooge sees the world after his death. Not only does no one mourn his loss the world is a colder place seemingly because of him. Scrooge finally sees the errors of his ways and begs for the chance to set things right. He then wakes up and finds that only one night has passed. Full of Christmas cheer he buys Bob Cratchit a Christmas goose and becomes a more generous person. Tiny Tim is able to make a full recovery.

Like most of Dickens work, there's an element of social critique in this holiday tale that is still relevant today. He used the story of a miserly old man and his miraculous transformation as an indictment of the Industrial Revolution and the money-grubbing tendencies that his main character Scrooge exemplifies. The stories strong condemnation of greed and the true meaning of Christmas is what has made it such a memorable tale.

Study Guide

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Charles Dickens is one of the greatest novelists of the Victorian era. His novella A Christmas Carol is considered by many to be one of the great Christmas stories ever written. It's been popular since its first publication in 1843. Dozens of movies have been made of the story along with countless stage reproductions.

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Charles Dickens's novel, A Christmas Carol (1843), is the famous redemption tale of the wicked Ebenezer Scrooge. On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by spirits, including his former business partner Jacob Marley, and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come.

Each ghost has a different message for Scrooge about how his penny-pinching and indifference has affected himself and others who care about him. By the end of the story, Scrooge has become enlightened and vows to change his mean, miserly ways before it's too late

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Charles Dickens's novel, A Christmas Carol (1843), is the famous redemption tale of the wicked Ebenezer Scrooge. On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by spirits, including his former business partner Jacob Marley, and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come.

Each ghost has a different message for Scrooge about how his penny-pinching and indifference has affected himself and others who care about him. By the end of the story, Scrooge has become enlightened and vows to change his mean, miserly ways before it's too late.

Famous Quotations

The Ghost of Jacob Marley

Marley's ghost tells Scrooge why he has appeared to him on Christmas Eve, wearing the chains he forged in life.

"It is required of every man," the ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death."

The Ghost of Christmas Past

After reliving his past and seeing his kindly former mentor Fezziwig, Scrooge is overwhelmed. He tells the Ghost:

"Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me from this place."
"I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do not blame me!"

Ghost of Christmas Present

"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."

The Ghost of Christmas Present is telling Scrooge not to blame his past bad behavior on anyone else or any divine influence.

Ebenezer Scrooge

Scrooge takes a long time to get on board with the spirits, but once he does, he panics that he's run out of time to redeem himself.

"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!" Scrooge says this to the ghost of his late business partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge is doubting his senses, and can't believe that the Ghost is real.

"Ghost of the Future," he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?"

After visits from the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, Scrooge most fears the visit of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. When he sees what this spirit has to show him, Scrooge begs to know whether the course of events can be changed:

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!"

When he wakes up on Christmas morning, Scrooge realizes he can make amends for his past cruelties.

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!"

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Charles Dickens's novel, A Christmas Carol (1843), is the famous redemption tale of the wicked Ebenezer Scrooge. On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by spirits, including his former business partner Jacob Marley, and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come.

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Dickens had achieved popularity with his first novel, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, which was serialized from mid-1836 to late 1837. Known today as The Pickwick Papers, the novel was filled with comic characters the British public found charming.

In the following years Dickens wrote more novels:

1838: Oliver Twist"

1839: "Nicholas Nickleby"

1841: "The Old Curiosity Shop"

1841: "Barnaby Rudge"

Dickens reached literary superstar status with "The Old Curiosity Shop," as readers on both sides of the Atlantic became obsessed with Little Nell. An enduring legend is that New Yorkers eager for the next installment would stand on the dock and yell out to passengers on incoming British packet liners, asking if Little Nell was still alive.

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A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens is one of the most beloved works of 19th-century literature, and the story's enormous popularity helped make Christmas a major holiday in Victorian Britain. When Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol" in late 1843, he had ambitious purposes in mind, yet he could never have imagined the profound impact his story would have.

Dickens had already achieved great fame, yet his most recent novel wasn't selling well and he feared his success had peaked. Indeed, he faced some serious financial problems as Christmas 1843 approached.

Beyond his own worries, Dickens was keenly attuned to the profound misery of the working poor in England. A visit to the grimy industrial city of Manchester motivated him to tell the story of greedy businessman Ebenezer Scrooge, who would be transformed by the Christmas spirit.

Dickens rushed "A Christmas Carol" into print by Christmas 1843, and it became a phenomenon.

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Soon after his father's release from prison, Dickens got a better job as errand boy in law offices. He taught himself shorthand to get an even better job later as a court stenographer and as a reporter in Parliament. At the same time, Dickens, who had a reporter's eye for transcribing the life around him, especially anything comic or odd, submitted short sketches to obscure magazines. The first published sketch, "A Dinner at Poplar Walk" (later retitled "Mr. Minns and His Cousin") brought tears to Dickens's eyes when he discovered it in the pages of The Monthly Magazine in 1833. From then on his sketches, which appeared under the pen name "Boz" (rhymes with "rose") in The Evening Chronicle, earned him a modest reputation. Boz originated as a childhood nickname for Dickens's younger brother Augustus.

Dickens became a regular visitor at the home of George Hogarth, editor of The Evening Chronicle, and in 1835 became engaged to Hogarth's daughter Catherine. Publication of the collected Sketches by Boz in 1836 gave Dickens sufficient income to marry Catherine Hogarth that year. The marriage proved unhappy.

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Dickens's love of the theatrical makes his works lend themselves readily to media adaptations. Motion-picture or television versions exist for almost every one of them. A Christmas Carol was one of the earliest to be adapted, first appearing as the silent film Scrooge (1901), directed by Walter R. Booth. The most notable adaptations include A Christmas Carol (1938), directed by Edwin L. Marin and starring Reginald Owen, and, probably the most famous of all, A Christmas Carol (1951), directed by Brian Desmond Hart and starring Alastair Sim. A later production titled Scrooged (1988) was directed by Richard Donner and starred Bill Murray. David Lean directed the most famous of the many versions of Great Expectations (1946). The film Oliver! (1968), a musical based on Oliver Twist and directed by Carol Reed, won six Academy Awards. Nowadays people are probably more familiar with the many BBC television miniseries productions of Dickens's works.

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Dickens, Charles John Huffam (1812-1870), probably the best-known and, to many people, the greatest English novelist of the 19th century. A moralist, satirist, and social reformer, Dickens crafted complex plots and striking characters that capture the panorama of English society.
Dickens's novels criticize the injustices of his time, especially the brutal treatment of the poor in a society sharply divided by differences of wealth. But he presents this criticism through the lives of characters that seem to live and breathe. Paradoxically, they often do so by being flamboyantly larger than life: The 20th-century poet and critic T. S. Eliot wrote, "Dickens's characters are real because there is no one like them." Yet though these characters range through the sentimental, grotesque, and humorous, few authors match Dickens's psychological realism and depth. Dickens's novels rank among the funniest and most gripping ever written, among the most passionate and persuasive on the topic of social justice, and among the most psychologically telling and insightful works of fiction. They are also some of the most masterful works in terms of artistic form, including narrative structure, repeated motifs, consistent imagery, juxtaposition of symbols, stylization of characters and settings, and command of language.

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Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years he was returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education and other social reforms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens

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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. A Christmas Carol 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. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

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A Christmas Carol is one of the most famous works by English writer Charles Dickens. The novella, fully titled A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost-Story of Christmas, has never been out of print since it was first published in 1843. In five chapters, or staves, it tells the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly man who lives alone and only cares about making and hoarding his money. Through the course of three supernatural visits that occur the night of Christmas Eve, Scrooge learns the true meaning of life and Christmas.

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Charles Dickens was a famous English writer. He wrote many books, including Oliver Twist and Scrooge.

When Dickens was a child his family were very poor.

When he became famous, only rich people could afford to buy books. Dickens published his stories in sections in (cheaper) magazines so poorer people could read them.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z7d7gwx/articles/z4j32sg

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A Christmas Carol, probably the most popular piece of fiction that Charles Dickens ever wrote, was published in 1843.

The publisher was Chapman & Hall (although Dickens paid the publishing costs) and the illustrator was John Leech.
https://www.charlesdickensinfo.com/christmas-carol/#A_Christmas_Carol_Picture_Scramble

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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.

His own story is one of rags to riches. He was born in Portsmouth on 7 February 1812, to John and Elizabeth Dickens.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/dickens_charles.shtml

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Charles Dickens, in full Charles John Huffam Dickens, (born February 7, 1812, Portsmouth, Hampshire, England—died June 9, 1870, Gad’s Hill, near Chatham, Kent), English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian era. His many volumes include such works as A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, and Our Mutual Friend.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Dickens-British-novelist