A Christmas Carol: Illustrated by John Leech

Charles Dickens

Nov 2011 · Top Five Classics Book 5 · Top Five Books LLC

About this ebook

This Top Five Classics illustrated edition of Dickens’s immortal classic, A Christmas Carol, features:

• All of the original full-color and b&w illustrations by John Leech

• 20 additional woodcut engravings by Sol Eytinge Jr. from the 1869 American edition by Ticknor & Fields

• A helpful introduction, author bio, and bibliography

Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old curmudgeon who spurns Christmas as a “humbug,” is given the chance to redeem himself through the intervention of four Spirits on Christmas Eve. If reading Dickens’s most beloved story doesn't put you in the true spirit of Christmas, you may be beyond redemption.

As Scrooge’s nephew Fred said, “I have always thought of Christmas time…as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.”

Or as Tiny Tim put it more succinctly, “God bless us every one!”

Ratings and reviews

Can't catch on and don't understand any of it! He's speaking gobbledygook. I don't know whether it's just because I'm a 12 yr old or its a bad book. Also there's only 5 chapters, what on earth's a stave and finally all of his books have ridiculously long chapters! Please leave a comment if you can recommend an interesting dickens novel with short chapters I can read for my yr7 reading homework... Thank you for reading!

How can I even describe the beauty and tenderness of this book? It moves me to tears from the sadness, the desperation, and ultimately the hope that it engenders in people every December for over a century. I wish so many more people would read this short novel by Charles Dickens because I sincerely believe that if they did, this world would not be as uncaring towards the poor. It describes the absolute essence of Christian charity when it's done with a pure heart. God bless this book!

Haven't even added the book to my library... Says it's free but asking for my mode of payment...very misleading!

About the author

Charles Dickens, perhaps the best British novelist of the Victorian era, was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England on February 7, 1812. His happy early childhood was interrupted when his father was sent to debtors' prison, and young Dickens had to go to work in a factory at age twelve. Later, he took jobs as an office boy and journalist before publishing essays and stories in the 1830s. His first novel, The Pickwick Papers, made him a famous and popular author at the age of twenty-five. Subsequent works were published serially in periodicals and cemented his reputation as a master of colorful characterization, and as a harsh critic of social evils and corrupt institutions. His many books include Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Great Expectations, Little Dorrit, A Christmas Carol, and A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in 1836, and the couple had nine children before separating in 1858 when he began a long affair with Ellen Ternan, a young actress. Despite the scandal, Dickens remained a public figure, appearing often to read his fiction. He died in 1870, leaving his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished.