➥ 4 Stars *:･ﾟ✧

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

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As mentioned, I was braindead while stress-reading this, so don't expect coherence. I think I somewhat liked it, and the quote above was so funny to me. I get what people mean though, now, about how Dicken's writing is dense. Oof. So yes, I'm now petrified to start Great Expectations but well!

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*only read A Christmas Carol from this collection.

This was so good. I’ll be seeing a theatrical production of A Christmas Carol next month so I decided to read the book and man oh man. Dickens is just an incredible writer. This book is funny, frightening, and sweet. And such a programmatic story for so many other books and movies. It has such a long shadow that I assumed the book itself would be a little underwhelming. I’m so glad I was wrong. This was my first Dickens book and it will not be my last!

if multiple ghosts woke me up in the middle of the night telling me to become a better person, i would simply just become worse out of spite

A lovely edition of the Christmas books...

This contains the five novella-length stories usually known as Dickens’ Christmas books, in a lovely new hardback edition from Oxford World’s Classics. It’s beautifully produced, with some of the original illustrations for each story, and is one of those volumes that is a physical pleasure to read, quite apart from the contents. I’d say it is perfect Christmas gift material for any Dickens fan, except I’d never be willing to give my copy away!

A Christmas Carol, of course, is a wonderful story – the ultimate Christmas tale and one of my favourite books of all time. Since almost everyone knows it though, I’m going to concentrate on the other four stories instead, most of which I hadn’t read before. First off, I was surprised by the fact that most of them aren’t set at Christmas – the name “Christmas book” comes from the fact that they were originally published in the Christmas edition of the various periodicals to which Dickens contributed. They’re variable in standard, though being Dickens, that means they vary in a range between good and excellent. None of them can compete with A Christmas Carol which remains the star at the top of the Christmas tree, but I enjoyed each of them individually, and have had great pleasure reading one each weekend on the run up to Christmas.

n  The Chimesn tells the story of old Toby “Trotty” Veck, who becomes convinced by the unfeeling rich people he meets of the worthlessness of the poor – indeed, that they are born bad and don’t deserve to live. On this night, just before New Year, as he sits before his little fire, it seems to him the bells of the local church are calling to him and, when he answers their call, he is taught the error of his thoughts.

Well! This is Dickens in full social justice warrior mode, showing the dire poverty in which so many people lived contrasted with the smug and hypocritical rich, who lecture when a sixpence would work better, who wallow in their own well-fed self-satisfaction as they blame the poor for cluttering up their otherwise charming and tidy world. It has little of the humour of A Christmas Carol – it is dark to the point where it had me sobbing, with starvation and death, men jailed for the crime of trying to stay alive, women driven to prostitution, infanticide and suicide. There is a form of redemption at the end, but I certainly didn’t come away from it feeling as uplifted as I do when Tiny Tim asks God to bless us, everyone. In fact, I felt angry, depressed and as if I wanted to go and beat a few rich hypocrites over the head with a yule log – and I don’t mean the cake. So I think Dickens pretty much succeeded in his aim…

n  The Cricket on the Hearthn tells of little Mrs Peerybingle, Dot, the (very) young wife of John, a middle-aged carrier. They are idyllically happy until a stranger arrives who disrupts the happy home and the lives not only of John and Dot but of several of their friends and neighbours. Will the Household Spirit in the form of the Cricket on the Hearth be able to restore harmony and joy to all?

John loves Dot with all his heart and has done ever since she was a child. (I know, creepy, but it seems to have been relatively normal back in those times – look at Knightley and Emma.) The question that John belatedly is forced to consider is, can little Dot possibly love him in the same way, or has he been unintentionally cruel in persuading her to devote her youth to him? The stranger is the catalyst for this dark night of the soul for poor, kind, honest John, but to take the point further and show another side to it, Dickens includes another couple about to be wed where the age difference is even greater and the bride is being more or less forced into the marriage by her mother because the bridegroom is wealthy.

It’s a delightful story, with plenty of room for jealousy, self-doubt, sorrow, generosity of spirit, joy and, of course, redemption. I enjoyed it very much and was left feeling pleasantly uplifted.

n  The Battle of Lifen tells of two sisters, Grace and Marion, who live with their father on the site of an ancient battle. The younger sister, Marion, is engaged to marry her father’s ward, Alfred, but when he returns from studying abroad to claim his bride, she disappears...

It is a rather strange tale, the least successful in my opinion, and not at all festive. The two sisters are the sort of drooping, too perfect girls in which Dickens specialises, and Alfred is the male equivalent. The mystery is, why has Marion gone? Has she run off with another man? Or is there some deeply moral and self-sacrificing reason behind her strange actions? Go on, guess!

Fortunately, there are several characters who are much more fun. The maid, Clemency, and her husband-to-be provide most of the humour and warmth that the central story lacks. The girls’ father, believes all human life is farce, though the events of the story will make him a wiser man (but less happy, which seems a pity). There are a couple of enjoyably quirky lawyers and their wives, who add considerably to the entertainment value. And there’s a mysterious man who’s considerably more attractive than the insipid Alfred.

Why is it called The Battle of Life? Why all the battlefield and buried corpse references, some of which are quite revolting? No idea! Possibly just so Dickens could make a point about war being a Bad Thing. But I really couldn’t see the relevance of this to the actual story. Oh well, not to worry – I enjoyed it anyway, and of course it has a happy ending!

n  The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargainn tells of Mr Redlaw, a man who dwells so much on the sorrows and slights of his past that he is unable to find pleasure in the present. Until the ghost offers him a bargain – that Mr Redlaw’s memories of all events from his past which have painful associations are stripped from his mind. But the ghost goes further – everyone whom Mr Redlaw meets will suffer the same fate…

Hurrah! A Christmas theme! It starts with Mr Swidger, the old caretaker of the college, and his family hanging holly as they do every year at Christmas-time, and culminates with a grand feast on Christmas Day. It has a strong message most suitable for the Christmas season: that it is our sorrows in life which humanise us and make us able to empathise with the troubles of others. And it has an equally powerful social message – that children abandoned to a life of poverty without love or hope cannot grow up to be anything other than monstrous. The child in this is a fuller version of Ignorance in A Christmas Carol – a thing to be prevented, or feared.

This has a very similar message to A Christmas Carol, but doesn’t quite have the same kind of joyous sparkle – there is a lesson given and a lesson learned, but it’s all much darker somehow and the inevitable redemption doesn’t bring quite the same level of hopeful uplift to the spirits. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it very much, especially Dickens’ anger over society’s neglect of its poverty-ridden children. We really need another Dickens for today...

Have yourself the Dickens of a Christmas!

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I feel like I should note I only read A Christmas Carol from this selection. It's a good 'un. I think I like it more every time I read it. I loved the last few lines, especially.

I finished this one Christmas morning, it’s a nice way to start the festivities off. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Tim Curry, which was fantastic. Loved the writing in this, makes me actually want to read his other work! And pretty funny too!

Every year, I reread Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and it is always just as wonderful as the year before. It is always an easy 5 star rating. This year, I decided to read the entire collection in this volume. The so-called Other Christmas Writings were also enjoyable, but none of them quite had the magic that I keep coming back to A Christmas Carol for.

Rereading A Christmas Carol always sparks joy, but this annual reread was done with my book club friends and it made it an even better experience! Analysing Scrooge’s trauma, Dickens’ view on London society, and whether or not the Ghost’s different methods would psychologically be effective or not were some of my favourite topics of our discussion. But the entire chat provided new perspectives and I’m curious to find out how my reread next Christmas will feel.

It has become an annual ritual now for last few years. I have always ended my Goodreads reading challenge with Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. This year I chose the first edition - A Christmas Carol and other Christmas Writings which is part of Penguin's 85 beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series first published in 2010. Designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith, these collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.

With an introduction by Michael Slater this edition includes six Christmas stories by Dickens other than A Christmas Carol

The clothbound edition of Sense and Sensibility was released on November 6, 2008. In the 14 years since, Penguin Classics have published 85 Clothbound Classics, ranging from Les Misérables (columns of songbirds on branches, in red against black cloth, 2012) to The Lonely Londoners (the arched rafters of a train station ceiling, black on orange, 2021); originally released in “drops”, or small series, the Cloth bounds have now been folded into Penguin Classics’ publishing schedule. (Source Penguin.co.uk)

Me encanta esta historia y disfruté mucho con la lectura. Además vienen otros relatos, con tema navideño, pero mi favorito será siempre Canción de Navidad.

I rounded this novel up to 4, as an average for all the stories in this novel. This novel is a collection of Dickens' Christmas stories, including "A Christmas Carol", five other Christmas-themed stories, fourteen very short Christmas stories, and three short Christmas stories he co-wrote. For the sake of time and space, I have only included the five Christmas stories in this review.

A Christmas Carol: 5 Obviously. There is no need to sum up this story's plot so I won't go into it. This story is the most recognized and traditional Christmas story in history and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Chimes: 4 "Trotty" is a pauper who is struggling to survive in a world that believes he (and others like him) should be "put down". The chimes from the bells of the local church ring out the rhythm to his life. When he falls down the church tower and has a near-death experience, he returns to his life determined to value those he holds dear.
This story is similar to "A Christmas Carol", except for the fact that Trotty is a pauper, and he appears to be undeserving of his harsh experiences.

A Cricket on the Hearth: 3 Told from the point of view of "the narrator", the young, newly married couple that are the protagonists, hear a 'cricket on the hearth' and deem that to be good luck. The story is a love story between Dot and John (our cricket homeowners), May and Edward (their young friends), and Caleb and his blind daughter.
This story is not Christmas themed (in reality, the young couple were married on New Years and they talk about how their one year anniversary is coming up) and unrealistic to the extreme. (We are to assume that rich, old Tackleton will simply give up his bride-to-be because he knows she is in love with someone else, who has miraculously returned to town). Dickens' stories are hard to follow with his archaic, poetic language, and this story had no plot, which made it even more of a challenge.

The Book of Life: 3 This story takes place around Christmas but does not have a strong holiday theme, and, like its previous stories, it revolves around a near-death experience which challenges the main characters to re-examine their world views. In this story, one sister sacrifices the love of her life for her sister (who has been in love with him for years) which, although altruistic, is also unbelievable and speaks to the dated era of Dickens. I thoroughly enjoyed the roles of Clementine and Britain however, the two destined housekeepers.

The Haunted Man: 4 This story is most similar to "The Christmas Carol". Our main character, the Chemist Redlaw, has had his memories of loss, pain and trauma taken away from him (voluntarily) and he spends the plot of the story trying to regain them, as he learns that he cannot fully appreciate happiness without the counterweight of sadness. Not particularly Christmas-themed either, but the theme is very reminiscent of the season.

I enjoyed the introduction particularly, as it detailed the life of Charles Dickens and how he came to write "A Christmas Carol" and its subsequent stories. I became entirely obsessed with his life after this, and believe he deserves full props and respect for being the literary figure he is. These stories are difficult to read due to their poetic language (think Shakespeare) but the themes remain true and the literary caliber is five-star.

This my first reading of this book, of course the story of A Christmas Carol is not new to me, I have seen many versions of this on the TV. The original does not disappoint, it is a brilliant little story that plays out just like I know, the animated version with Jim Carey is, in my opinion, the one that captures the book best. Scrooge is a great character and reading as he realises that Christmas is all about blowing all his dosh on the biggest bird possible was fun to read.

As for the other stories, you can see a few of them were almost first attempts of Dickens creating the main story. The Haunted man is the second big story in the book and the weakest in the whole collection, I thought it was dull and failed to grab my attention enough to figure out what the hell was going on. My favourite of the shorter stories was "A Christmas Tree" Dickens spots a Christmas tree and all it's decorations and gets transported back to his childhood and the fun he had playing with his toys, very touching stuff.

This is another of the Penguin Clothbound classics that I own and again it is lovely. It feels amazing in your hands as you read, nice thick pages and a top notch cover.

Blog review is here: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2019...