A BUDGET OF CHRISTMAS TALES

by Charles Dickens, Various

Overview

Enjoy the classic Christmas tales for the entire family.

A Christmas Carol 13
CHARLES DICKENS.

The Christmas Babe 73
MARGARET E. SANGSTER.

A Western Christmas 74
MRS. W. H. CORNING.

Joe's Search for Santa Claus 83
IRVING BACHELLER.

Angela's Christmas 87
JULIA SCHAYER.

The First Puritan Christmas Tree 100
(ANONYMOUS.)

First New England Christmas 103
HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.

The Chimes 106
CHARLES DICKENS.

Billy's Santa Claus Experience 170
CORNELIA REDMOND.

Christmas in Poganuc 173
MRS. H. B. STOWE.

The Christmas Princess 192
MRS. MOLESWORTH.

Widow Townsend's Visitor 210
(ANONYMOUS.)

The Old Man's Christmas 223
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

The Christmas Goblin 239
CHARLES DICKENS.

The Song of the Star 244
C. H. MEAD.

Indian Pete's Christmas Gift 252
H. W. COLLINGWOOD.

My Christmas Dinner 264
(ANONYMOUS.)

The Poor Traveler 272
CHARLES DICKENS.

The Legend of the Christmas Tree 287
(ANONYMOUS.)

The Peace Egg 290
JULIANA HORATIA EWING.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940011954221
Publisher:	SAP
Publication date:	12/29/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	226 KB
Age Range:	6 - 8 Years

About the Author

Born on February 7, 1812, Charles Dickens was the second of eight children in a family burdened with financial troubles. Despite difficult early years, he became the most successful British writer of the Victorian age.

In 1824, young Charles was withdrawn from school and forced to work at a boot-blacking factory when his improvident father, accompanied by his mother and siblings, was sentenced to three months in a debtor's prison. Once they were released, Charles attended a private school for three years. The young man then became a solicitor's clerk, mastered shorthand, and before long was employed as a Parliamentary reporter. When he was in his early twenties, Dickens began to publish stories and sketches of London life in a variety of periodicals.

It was the publication of Pickwick Papers (1836-1837) that catapulted the twenty-five-year-old author to national renown. Dickens wrote with unequaled speed and often worked on several novels at a time, publishing them first in monthly installments and then as books. His early novels Oliver Twist (1837-1838), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841), and A Christmas Carol (1843) solidified his enormous, ongoing popularity. As Dickens matured, his social criticism became increasingly biting, his humor dark, and his view of poverty darker still. David Copperfield (1849-1850), Bleak House (1852-1853), Hard Times (1854), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-1861), and Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865) are the great works of his masterful and prolific period.

In 1858 Dickens's twenty-three-year marriage to Catherine Hogarth dissolved when he fell in love with Ellen Ternan, a young actress. The last years of his life were filled with intense activity: writing, managing amateur theatricals, and undertaking several reading tours that reinforced the public's favorable view of his work but took an enormous toll on his health. Working feverishly to the last, Dickens collapsed and died on June 8, 1870, leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood uncompleted.

Author biography from the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of David Copperfield.

Date of Birth:

February 7, 1812

Date of Death:

June 18, 1870

Place of Birth:

Portsmouth, England

Place of Death:

Gad's Hill, Kent, England

Education:

Home-schooling; attended Dame School at Chatham briefly and Wellington