Table of Contents

Introduction
Charles Dickens: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text

A Christmas Carol

Appendix A: Reflections on Christmas

Appendix B: Child Labor, Education, and the Workhouse

Appendix C: From Letters of Charles Dickens

Appendix D: Contemporary Reviews of A Christmas Carol

Appendix E: Notable Film, Television, and Radio Adaptations of A Christmas Carol

Works Cited and Recommended Reading

About the Author

Richard Kelly is a Professor of English at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He is the editor of the Broadview edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (2000).

Reviews

“This volume is a distinguished addition to a superb series. Richard Kelly’s fine edition of Dickens’s ‘timeless classic’ richly documents just how very timely this little book was, being the inspired and inspiring result of Dickens’s passionately humanitarian response to the harshness and brutality with which the poor, especially children of the poor, were treated in the England of 1843. In his substantial introduction, supplemented by a well-chosen selection of contemporary writings, Professor Kelly also demonstrates another notable aspect of the work’s timeliness by situating it in the context of the great revival of traditional Christmas festivities going on during the first half of the nineteenth century.” — Michael Slater, Birkbeck College, University of London

This reissued recording of Stewart's touted Broadway performance might prove to be the enduring interpretation of Dickens's beloved tale of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge and the ghosts of past, present, and future who catalyze his transformation. In a production stripped of sound effects, Stewart's theatrical talents take center stage. Reading with a voice that it is at once commanding and fragile, he creates a Scrooge of unexpected complexity and pathos. A spare and dazzling listen that might be the best rendition of the classic since the 1951 Alistair Sim production. (Nov.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

"This volume is a distinguished addition to a superb series. Richard Kelly's fine edition of Dickens's 'timeless classic' richly documents just how very timely this little book was, being the inspired and inspiring result of Dickens's passionately humanitarian response to the harshness and brutality with which the poor, especially children of the poor, were treated in the England of 1843. In his substantial introduction, supplemented by a well-chosen selection of contemporary writings, Professor Kelly also demonstrates another notable aspect of the work's timeliness by situating it in the context of the great revival of traditional Christmas festivities going on during the first half of the nineteenth century." - Michael Slater, Birkbeck College, University of London