Eytinge's realisation of Bob's homecoming, with a cheeky Martha hiding (right), Bob Cratchit at Home. link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.] Bibliography

intended to open its readers' hearts towards those struggling to survive on the lower rungs of the economic ladder and to encourage practical benevolence, but also to warn of the terrible danger to society created by the toleration of widespread ignorance and actual want among the poor. [16] Of all the affecting scenes from A Christmas Carol none touches the heart more than the death of the crippled Tiny Tim, foreshadowed to Scrooge by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, especially to Victorian readers. Large families and child mortality were common in the 19th century and many readers may have suffered firsthand the loss of a child. Dixon. London & Glasgow: Collins' Clear-Type Press, 1906._____. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Harry No. Your past.” A cheerful group of people. My favorite A Christmas Carol image, dancing at Mr. Fezziwig’s Christmas time party. Illustration 7 (of 8) produced by John Leech for the original publication of A Christmas Carol in December, 1843. Colour. Titled The Last of the Spirits — The Pointing Finger ( Stave 4).

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A Visit from St. Nicholas" (also known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas", 1823) attributed to Clement Clarke Moore Martin, Katherine Connor (19 December 2011). "merry, adj". Oxford English Dictionary. (subscription required) Deacy, Christopher (2016). Christmas as Religion: Rethinking Santa, the Secular, and the Sacred. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-106955-0.

the whimsy evident in Scrooge's suppressing his own bitter-sweet memories in The end of the First Spirit His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognized him as a literary genius. His works are still popular and widely read even today. I have not the least doubt that if these Vagabonds can be stopped they must.... Let us be the sledge-hammer in this, or I shall be beset by hundreds of the same crew when I come out with a long story. [87] According to C. Z. Barnett in his play A Christmas Carol or The Miser's Warning (1844) Cratchit would have spent a week's wages to buy the ingredients for the Christmas feast: seven shillings for the goose, five for the pudding, and three for the onions, sage and oranges.Welch, Bob (2015). 52 Little Lessons from a Christmas Carol. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson. ISBN 978-1-4002-0675-9. Spirit!” he cried, tight clutching at its robe, “hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?” Stave Five Davis, Paul (1990a). The Lives and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-04664-9. You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't you?" Gordon, Alexander; McConnell, Anita (2008). "Elwes [ formerly Meggott], John". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (onlineed.). Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/ref:odnb/8776. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

The first spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge to Christmas scenes of Scrooge's boyhood, reminding him of a time when he was more innocent. The scenes reveal Scrooge's lonely childhood at boarding school, his relationship with his beloved sister Fan, who died young while giving birth to Fred, and a Christmas party hosted by his first employer, Mr Fezziwig, who treated him like a son. Scrooge's neglected fiancée Belle is shown ending their relationship, as she realises that he will never love her as much as he loves money. Finally, they visit a now-married Belle with her large, happy family on the Christmas Eve that Marley died. Scrooge, upset by hearing Belle's description of the man that he has become, demands that the ghost remove him from the house. Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and, following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name,Ebenezer Scrooge.Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning a changed man. He makes a large donation to the charity he rejected the previous day, anonymously sends a large turkey to the Cratchit home for Christmas dinner and spends the afternoon at Fred's Christmas party. The following day he gives Cratchit an increase in pay, and begins to become a father figure to Tiny Tim. From then on Scrooge treats everyone with kindness, generosity and compassion, embodying the spirit of Christmas. Howells, William Dean (1910). My literary passions, criticism and fiction. New York and London: Harper & Brother. p.2986994. ISBN 978-1-77667-633-0. It is interesting to note that the now famous scene, Bob Cratchit with Tiny Tim on his shoulder, was not illustrated in the original version. The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if, instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance. Davis, Paul (Winter 1990b). "Literary History: Retelling A Christmas Carol: Text and Culture-Text". The American Scholar. 59 (1): 109–15. JSTOR 41211762.

Forbes, Bruce David (2008). Christmas: A Candid History. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. p.62. ISBN 978-0-520-25802-0. At Scrooge's nephew Fred's Christmas party they play blind man's buff, a popular Victorian parlor game. In this particular game the blind man, Topper, and Fred team up to allow Topper to be able to see through the blindfold so that he can catch a lady whom he has his eye on: Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge. "I am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer."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 door-nail" ( Christmas Books-A Christmas Carol, p. 7). sheath was eaten up with rust. [Stave Three, "The Second of the three Spirits," p. 78] Commentary Continued The phrase "dead as a doornail" appears as early as the fourteenth-century in The Vision of Piers Plowman and later in Shakespeare's Henry IV. However, the origin of the phrase is unknown. One possible explanation is that doors were built using only wood boards and hand forged nails, the nails were long enough to dead nail the (vertical) wooden panels and (horizontal) stretcher boards securely together, so they would not easily pull apart. This was done by pounding the protruding point of the nail over and down into the wood. A nail that was bent in this fashion (and thus not easily pulled out) was said to be "dead", thus "dead as a doornail." ( Wiktionary)