The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol and 13 Other Classic Stories (Illustrated)

by Charles Dickens, Charles River Editors (Editor)

Overview

*Illustrated
*Includes Table of Contents

Christmas is the most famous holiday of the year, and the word itself evokes images of Santa Claus, Christmas trees, lights, the baby Jesus, and, of course, presents. Instantly, well known Christmas carols ring in your ears, or maybe you even picture nutcrackers or Scrooge and Tiny Tim.

Christmas has been popular for centuries, and it only continues to get more popular today, with Christmas season extending months in advance of December 25. And though much has been written of Christmas, its exact origins are still mysterious. Historians are unsure what date Jesus was born on, or whether Christmas Day coincides with previous pagan holidays.

The most famous Christmas tale of all is doubtless A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. The story has been remade and retold in countless permutations in cartoons and on TV. Scrooge and Tiny Tim, and the other memorable characters are a regular presence in the Christmas season.

Dickens wrote several Christmas-themed stories, which have been collected in this edition. The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens is specially formatted with a Table of Contents and is illustrated with over a dozen Christmas-related pictures, including trees, the Nativity Scene, Santa Claus, historical depictions of the holiday, and more.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940013510173
Publisher:	Charles River Editors
Publication date:	11/22/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

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In 1824, young Charles was withdrawn from school and forced to work at a boot-blacking factory when his improvident father, accompanied by his mother and siblings, was sentenced to three months in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