A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens -- BOOK BEGINNINGS

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAYS

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Thank you for joining me for Book Beginnings on this Friday after Christmas. Please share the opening sentence (or so) of the book you are reading this week. You can also share from a book that caught your fancy, even if you are not reading it right now.

MY BOOK BEGINNING

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

-- from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Until about five minutes ago, I didn't know that the full title is A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. That's pretty cool. 

I know people who read A Christmas Carol every year but I am not one of them. I've only read it two or three times in my whole life and the last time was at least ten years ago. But the whole novella is included in A Christmas Treasury of Yuletide Stories & Poems (1994), edited by James Charlton and Barbara Gilson, that I'm reading this Christmas week. So I reread Dickens's classic and loved it all over agin. 

Did you read anything Christmassy this year?  

YOUR BOOK BEGINNINGS

Please add the link to your Book Beginnings post in the box below. If you share on social media, please use the #bookbeginnings hashtag.

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THE FRIDAY 56

The Friday 56 is a natural tie-in with Book Beginnings. The idea is to share a two-sentence teaser from page 56 of your featured book. If you are reading an ebook or audiobook, find your teaser from the 56% mark.

Freda at Freda's Voice started and hosted The Friday 56 for a long, long time. She is taking a break and Anne at My Head is Full of Books has taken on hosting duties in her absence. Please visit Anne's blog and link to your Friday 56 post.

MY FRIDAY 56

-- from A Christmas Carol:

Awakening in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to him through Jacob Marley’s intervention.

 

FROM THE WIKIPEDIA DESCRIPTION

A Christmas Carol is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. It recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. In the process, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol during a period when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols, and newer customs such as cards and Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth and by the Christmas stories of other authors, including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, and was inspired following a visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, one of several establishments for London's street children. The treatment of the poor and the ability of a selfish man to redeem himself by transforming into a more sympathetic character are the key themes of the story. There is discussion among academics as to whether this is a fully secular story or a Christian allegory.