A Christmas Carol

By Charles Dickens

Book Overview

One of six beloved Christmas classics in collectible hardcover editions

First published on December 19, 1843, A Christmas Carol was an instant classic: Londoners thronged to hear Dickens read it in person and bought out the first printing in days. Its reception was so ecstatic that it is credited with helping to revive interest among the Victorians in Christmas traditions, including caroling and holiday cards, as well as inciting an unexpected wave of charitable giving from Britain's Industrial Age robber barons. Originally conceived as a pamphlet against exploitative capitalism before taking its current form, it has inspired dozens of theatrical and movie adaptions, and its characters, from Scrooge to Tiny Tim, are forever inscribed in our hearts and minds.

Penguin Christmas Classics

Give the gift of literature this Christmas.

Penguin Christmas Classics honor the power of literature to keep on giving through the ages. The six volumes in the series are not only our most beloved Christmas tales, they also have given us much of what we love about the holiday itself. A Christmas Carol revived in Victorian England such Christmas hallmarks as the Christmas tree, holiday cards, and caroling. The Yuletide yarns of Anthony Trollope popularized throughout the British Empire and around the world the trappings of Christmas in London. The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus created the origin story for the presiding spirit of Christmas as we know it. The holiday tales of Louisa May Alcott shaped the ideal of an American Christmas. The Night Before Christmas brought forth some of our earliest Christmas traditions as passed down through folk tales. And The Nutcracker inspired the most famous ballet in history, one seen by millions in the twilight of every year.

Beautifully designed hardcovers--with foil-stamped jackets, decorative endpapers, and nameplates for personalization--in a small trim size that makes them perfect stocking stuffers, Penguin Christmas Classics embody the spirit of giving that is at the heart of our most time-honored stories about the holiday.

Collect all six Penguin Christmas Classics:

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Christmas at Thompson Hall: And Other Christmas Stories by Anthony Trollope
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum
A Merry Christmas: And Other Christmas Stories by Louisa May Alcott
The Night Before Christmas by Nikolai Gogol
The Nutcracker by E. T. A. Hoffmann

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0907486908
• ISBN13: 9780143122494
• Release Date: October 2014
• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.1" x 7.5"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 12 and higher

Customer Reviews

Classic Story

Charles Dickens is one of my all-time favourite authors. He depicts character, people, and life in such vivid colours that you almost feel a part of the story. This is a great book to read during the Christmas holidays. I've always loved reading it, listening to the audio book or watching the old black and white film. It's a must-have for any home library.

Even the Blind Mans Dog avoided Scrooge!

This is the most heartwarming story EVER written about Yuletide, the story is truly magical. It captures the very essence of what Christmas is all about. I like to start reading it every December, just to get into that "Christmassy" mood, it's a lot more effective then "Bottled" Christmas spirits. But let us not forget as the author is at pains to point out; Marley was dead,.... to begin with. ~~~~ "I am the Ghost of Christmas Past." "Long Past?" inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarsfish stature. "No. Your past." (One of many simple but great lines, that stay with you when you've finished.) Reading this story certainly changed my life, and saved me the need for three visits! "God bless us everyone".

A Part of Western Culture

Critiquing Dickens' Christmas Carol is a misnomer. Rather, it is Dickens who critiques us with this masterwork. A Christmas Carol has burrowed into the very heart of our Western Culture to where few people would be confused if you referred to someone as a "Scrooge," that is to say a skinflint, miser. Aside from presenting us with some of the most memorable images in literature as Scrooge is taken by the Ghosts of the Past, Present and Future to review his life and probable ending, we are brought along with his and given opportunity to review those elements in our own lives. A Christmas Carol was not just a nice story of the Christmas Season to give warmth and cheer. Far from it! Dickens had an agenda. Just as in his other famous works, like Oliver Twist and David Copperfield, Dickens longed to make a social statement to draw attention to the poor in England, their plight and hardship. A Christmas Carol is about Scrooge as a person, but also as representing a class of the wealthy whose abundance is wrested from the large working poor such as Cratchett and his family. THEY are the point. THEY are the ones Dickens sought to draw to public attention. Heaven help us is we simply see this book as nostalgia and fail to see the point Dickens had to make then and which still applies today!

This book is just fabulous!

This is one of the best stories ever written. Ebenezer Scrooge, is the biggest grouch on the world, almost murdering carolers that come to his door for the fact he just can't stand to be Merry, even at Christmas time. The 3 Ghosts (Ghost of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, Christmases to Come) take him to it's own time space, and show him how the Christmas was, and the funeral of Scrooge, only to find that he was unliked and hated, so that no one came to the funeral. This is a truly inspiring story, so I greatly encourage you to get this!