Emerging from Dickens's preoccupation in the early 1840s with issues of poverty, ignorance, and cruelty, this classic story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, visited by four ghosts on Christmas Eve, was first published in 1843 to strong reviews and popular success. The Broadview edition uses the first edition with original drawings by John Leech.

This edition also includes Washington Irving's descriptions of English Christmas customs; essays by Dickens on Christmas, and his essay "A Walk in a Workhouse"; a British government report on the lives of child labourers; a speech by Dickens on the importance of educating the poor; selected letters; contemporary reviews; and a listing of film, television, and radio adaptations of the book.

Comments:

"This volume is a distinguished addition to a superb series. Richard Kelly's fine edition of Dickens's 'timeless classic' richly documents just how very timely this little book was, being the inspired and inspiring result of Dickens's passionately humanitarian response to the harshness and brutality with which the poor, especially children of the poor, were treated in the England of 1843. In his substantial introduction, supplemented by a well-chosen selection of contemporary writings, Professor Kelly also demonstrates another notable aspect of the work's timeliness by situating it in the context of the great revival of traditional Christmas festivities going on during the first half of the nineteenth century." - Michael Slater, Birkbeck College, University of London 

Richard Kelly is a Professor of English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the editor of the Broadview edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (2000).

Table of Contents: [Back to Top]

Introduction                                             

Charles Dickens: A Brief Chronology

A Note on the Text

A Christmas Carol

Appendix A: Reflections on Christmas

1. Washington Irving, from The Sketch Book (1822)
2. Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Dinner" (1836)
3. Charles Dickens, from The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836-37)
4. Thomas K. Hervey, from The Book of Christmas (1837)
5.  John Calcott Horsley / Sir Henry Cole, The First Christmas Card (1843)
6.  Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Tree" (1850)
7.  Charles Dickens, "What Christmas Is, As We Grow Older" (1851)

Appendix B: Child Labor, Education, and the Workhouse

1. From Report of the Children's Employment Commission (1842)
2. From Charles Dickens's Speech at the First Annual Soiree of the Athenaeum: Manchester (Oct. 5, 1843)
3. Charles Dickens, "A Walk in a Workhouse" (1850)

Appendix C: From Letters of Charles Dickens

Appendix D: Contemporary Reviews of A Christmas Carol

1. Charles Mackay, Morning Chronicle (December 19, 1843)
2. Anon., Athenaeum (December 23, 1843)
3. Thomas Hood, Hood's Magazine, (January 4, 1844)
4. Laman Blanchard, Ainsworth's Magazine (January 1844)
5. Anon., The Times (January 7, 1844)
6. William Makepeace Thackeray, Fraser's Magazine, (February 1844)

Appendix E: Notable Film, Television, and Radio Adaptations of A Christmas Carol

Select Bibliography