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JenniferRobb: Both have male protagonists who experience visions of the past and of the future and whose visions cause a behavioral change. Dickens's work is about Christmas while Kingsbury's is not.
JenniferRobb: Both books look at three different periods in the main characters life. In Dickens it is past, present, and future. In Blount, it is childhood, adulthood, and old age.
Anonymous user: The Greatest Gift is the book that was turned into It's a Wonderful Life, probably the second best Christmas story after A Christmas Carol!
Glad I finally read this book. Our judgement is so much clouded because of all the movies made about this book, but after reading it by yourself, it finds itself in a completely different spotlight. Here you recognize right away the talent of an author, who gives us such a deep inside view into human relations, human emotions, and at the same time is also able to make us part of the atmosphere of wintertime, Christmas, family events. It is as if we are part of a timetravelling event, and the further we go from page to page, the more we can sympathize with Scrooge. One of those books that has become a classic, that has absolutely no flaws. ( )
My copy of A Christmas Carol also includes The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man. The preface by the author, which is just a couple of sentences, intends that these are all stories for "the season" or Christmas. Three of the other stories include visits by ghostly spirits who help people discover the importance of altruism, home, and family, in a similar vein to A Christmas Carol. And the one story that does not include a spirit, has similar themes. It is a repetitive short story collection- I believe there is a reason that A Christmas Carol is the only one that we've ever heard of before, nevertheless it is a charming collection of vaguely gothic Christmas stories for those who enjoy Charlies Dicken's writing. ( )
Listened to this as a podcast by The Cultured Bumpkin. He read the story in a Southern drawl. It worked quite nicely. A classic, surprisingly never read it before. ( )
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.
Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Para começar, quero ganatir que Marley estava morto. Sobre isso não havia a menor dúvida.
Quotations
"God bless us, every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.
"Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!"
Marley was dead: to begin with.
If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is I should like to know him too.
[This is when Scrooge is about to meet the Ghost of Christmas Past. The clock has struck 12 and he's wondering if it's noon or midnight, even though it's dark. He's not hearing people rushing around outside, though. Because the story was first published in 1843, this snark must be about the US depression of 1837-1844.]
... This was a great relief, because 'three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,' and so forth, would have become a mere United States security if there were no days to count by.
[Scrooge is waiting for the Ghost of Christmas Present to show up in his bedroom, which is filled with a ruddy light.]
... and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of knowing it.
[This was about bakers leaving their ovens available, for a small fee, for poor people to cook their dinners on Sundays and others wanting those ovens cold on the Sabbath. Scrooge wanted to know why the Ghost of Christmas Present would want to have those ovens closed on Sundays and deprive poor persons of a chance for their one real meal a week.]
'I seek!' exclaimed the Spirit.
'Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,' said Scrooge.
'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 our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.'
Last words
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!
Scrooge não voltou a encontrar os espíritos, embora tenha se tornado o homem que melhor sabia festejat o Natal. Oxalá isso aconteça com todos nós! E, como dizia o pequeno Tim, que Deus nos abençoe a todos!
This work contains various editions of the unabridged book "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. Please do not combine it with adaptations or abridgments, or with collections that contain additional works.
I am assuming (without any evidence!) that the Puffin children's edition is an adaptation: if you know that it is NOT, please combine with the main work, otherwise leave it be.
Specially edited for reading aloud before an audience.
ISBN 1568461828 is not a DK Eyewitness Classics edition.
ISBN 1580495796 is "Unabridged with glossary and reader's notes." "This Prestwick House edition, is an unabridged republication of A Christmas Carol, published by George Routledge and Sons, London."
Filled with description, Charles Dickens writes about the struggles of a poor family and the despicable Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge is a ruthless man who only cares about himself and money. Scrooge's entire character is changed on the night of Christmas Eve when is is visited by three ghosts as he relives parts of his past and his future in order to see what has and would become of him if he does not make a dramatic change in his life. I absolutely love this story and all that it entails. It is somewhat towards the bottom of my list though because some of the description can become a bit daunting as you read this novel.