A Christmas Carol (Chiltern Classic)

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Christmas caroling became even more popular when Queen Victoria married Prince Albert and with the beginning of German Yuletide traditions. Many of the carols written during the Victorian period was fictional and for entertainment. He felt a tremendous sense of betrayal and humiliation”, says Slater, “which gave him a hugely powerful identification with the children of the poor, because he’d been there himself.”

In addition to being hard of heart, Scrooge is a man with a deliberate philosophy of self-exoneration. It consists of two principles: 1) taxpayers fund the poor houses and prisons, thereby discharging in full their obligation to all of their fellow human beings, and 2) death by starvation, although it may seem regrettable, is actually a positive good as proven by science (because Malthus!), and relieves the rest of us of the burden of a surplus population. This philosophy is the shield that protects Scrooge from feeling the pains of sympathy and compassion. The full verse of I John 3:17 is "But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" [57] After Scrooge leaves his office, there’s this: “Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker’s-book, went home to bed.” I figured there’d be a whole couple of paragraphs at the restaurant. Nope! All of this seems trite and melodramatic in summary; in practice, it is pure magic, a precious gem that waits to be reread each year, and each year just as good as the last.Ebenezer Scrooge, the very definition of grumpy miserliness, gets a second chance at figuring out what's really important in life, with the help of some ghosts who give him an unforgettable version of "This is Your Life."

His commentary on Victorian life and his social criticisms are known to be key aspects of his books, and I can now attest to that fact! Though Scrooge is a bit hesitant of this deal, he is ultimately given little choice on the matter, and those three visits comprise the unforgettable spine of this book. The book opens with wonderful bathos, “ Marley was dead, to begin with.” So right from the outset it is clear it is not a straightforward factual tale. Apart from the famous ghosts (of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come), which were not unusual in literature of the time, it has time travel and parallel worlds, where each significant choice leads to a branching of reality, which is a staple of much great sci fi. Not such a typical Victorian novel after all.Tiny Tim talks about going to church and says, “it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.” Who does not recognise this expostulation, and the old curmudgeon who spat it out. The very name "Scrooge" has entered the vernacular to indicate a mean-spirited skinflint.