A Christmas Carol

By Charles Dickens

This enhanced ebook works on devices capable of playing audio books.

Christmas past, present, and future and the redemptive power of giving are brought vividly to life by Monica Dickens' reading of A Christmas Carol together with the original text.

Christmas can be happy and difficult in equal measure. Charles and Monica Dickens recognized this and both have left an extraordinary legacy affirming the redemptive power of giving.

First published in 1843, A Christmas Carol tells the timeless tale of Scrooge, the most miserly of all misers, and how he is shown the true meaning of Christmas by four ghostly visitors - his partner Marley, and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet To Come. By Christmas day, he has learnt his lesson and is willing to enter into the spirit of things.

Monica Dickens reads A Christmas Carol as it was read to her by her grandfather, who in turn heard it from the author himself. Monica Dickens gave an everlasting gift to others by establishing the Samaritans on Cape Cod and the Islands in Falmouth, Massachusetts in 1977. This recording is the original radio version which has been enhanced by new music and engineering to honor them both. Proceeds will benefit Samaritan crisis lines, support groups for those who have lost someone to suicide, and community outreach programs.

God Bless Us, Every One!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Dec 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781448206797

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was an English writer and social critic. Regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era, Dickens had a prolific collection of works including fifteen novels, five novellas, and hundreds of short stories and articles. The term “cliffhanger endings” was created because of his practice of ending his serial short stories with drama and suspense. Dickens’ political and social beliefs heavily shaped his literary work. He argued against capitalist beliefs, and advocated for children’s rights, education, and other social reforms. Dickens advocacy for such causes is apparent in his empathetic portrayal of lower classes in his famous works, such as The Christmas Carol and Hard Times.

Book preview

A Christmas Carol

by

Charles Dickens

Includes a recording of Monica Dickens, the author’s great-granddaughter, reading the book

Text Contents

’Twas the Night before Christmas

__________________________________________________

A Christmas Carol

Marley’s Ghost

The First of the Three Spirits

The Second of the Three Spirits

The Last of the Spirits

The End of It

Audio Contents

Monica Dickens Interview

Monica Dickens reading A Christmas Carol

The renowned author, Charles Dickens, captures the essence of giving in his treasured story of A Christmas Carol. His great-granddaughter, Monica Dickens, gave an everlasting gift to others by establishing the Samaritans on Cape Cod and the Islands in Falmouth, Massachusetts in 1977. This limited edition recording is the original radio version which has been enhanced by new music and engineering to honor them both. Proceeds will benefit Samaritan crisis lines, support groups for those who have lost someone to suicide, and community outreach programs. Happy Christmas!

Monica Dickens worked as a volunteer in the Central London branch, birthplace of the Samaritan movement. She did her training under the leadership of founder Chad Varah. She brought the movement to the US, successfully opening the first center in Boston, April 1974. The suicide rate on Cape Cod at that time was one of the highest in the US so Monica began working to open a center in Falmouth. Also, she used to say that her husband, Roy, was beginning to note how much time she spent driving to and from Boston, doing regular shifts and working with volunteers so perhaps it would be good for her to be closer to home in North Falmouth.

The first call received at the Falmouth center was on 2, 1977. It was Chad Varah who was calling to congratulate us on our opening. In 1977, there were very few emergency services available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, only the hospital, police and fire departments and the Samaritans.

Monica returned to England in 1986 and died on Christmas Day, 1992. At her memorial service here in Falmouth, one of the speakers referred to her as the quintessential Samaritan.

’Twas the Night before Christmas

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads.

And mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below.

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a miniature sleigh, and eight tinny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment it must be St Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!

On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen!

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.

So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,

With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.

A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.

He had a broad face and a little round belly,

That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!

Preface

I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their house pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

Their faithful Friend and Servant,

CD.

December 1843

Marley’s Ghost

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 doornail.

Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. 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 doornail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don’t know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley’s funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet’s Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot – say Saint Paul’s Churchyard for instance – literally to astonish his son’s weak mind.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley’s name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names: it was all the same to him.

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. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew

Reviews for A Christmas Carol

[bibliophile26 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great classic story!