A Christmas Carol

by Charles Dickens Narrated by Jason Isaacs

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

A timeless classic, A Christmas Carol has surely kept many children off the naughty list. Ebenezer Scrooge has become an iconic character, one whose story of change will inspire others to act kind towards all.

The greatest Christmas story ever written is brought to life by the inimitable Jason Isaacs. ''If I had my way, every idiot who goes around with Merry Christmas on his lips, would be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. Merry Christmas? Bah humbug!' To bitter, miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, Christmas is just another day. But all that changes when the ghost of his long-dead business partner appears, alongside the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come, warning Scrooge to change his ways before it's too late.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Bryksenkova's illustrations add a dash of whimsy to the novella, but also serve to underscore the darkness inherent in the story.... Yet her art isn't all doom and gloom. Bryksenkova's pictures capture the delicate beauty of Christmastime with muted colors interrupted by pops of vivid reds and greens.... It isn't just Bryksenkova's illustrations that lend this version of A Christmas Carol its renewed charm. The use of the text—which alternates vastly in size—to highlight different portions of the story, such as the introduction of Ignorance and Want by the Ghost of Christmas Present, makes certain scenes even more impactful. In fact, the way the text and images intermingle is the best part of this version of A Christmas Carol." - Victorian Homes magazine

"Bryksenkova's illustrations add a dash of whimsy to the novella, but also serve to underscore the darkness inherent in the story.... Yet her art isn't all doom and gloom. Bryksenkova's pictures capture the delicate beauty of Christmastime with muted colors interrupted by pops of vivid reds and greens.... It isn't just Bryksenkova's illustrations that lend this version of A Christmas Carol its renewed charm. The use of the text—which alternates vastly in size—to highlight different portions of the story, such as the introduction of Ignorance and Want by the Ghost of Christmas Present, makes certain scenes even more impactful. In fact, the way the text and images intermingle is the best part of this version of A Christmas Carol." - Victorian Homes magazine

"Bryksenkova's illustrations add a dash of whimsy to the novella, but also serve to underscore the darkness inherent in the story.... Yet her art isn't all doom and gloom. Bryksenkova's pictures capture the delicate beauty of Christmastime with muted colors interrupted by pops of vivid reds and greens.... It isn't just Bryksenkova's illustrations that lend this version of A Christmas Carol its renewed charm. The use of the text—which alternates vastly in size—to highlight different portions of the story, such as the introduction of Ignorance and Want by the Ghost of Christmas Present, makes certain scenes even more impactful. In fact, the way the text and images intermingle is the best part of this version of A Christmas Carol." - Victorian Homes magazine

Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

Perhaps the outstanding Christmas myth of modern literature.”

audiobooksreview.co.uk

The enduring popularity of the tale is fully vindicated in this gloriously spirited (no pun intended) production.

Independent

"Provides everything you might want from a theatrical adaptation of Dickens's timeless (and never more timely) morality tale urging social responsibility and compassion...both witty and deeply affecting."

The Horn Book

A smooth abridgment. The illustrations are rich and lush.

Sunday Express

A sure-fire tear-jerker. At one public reading by Dickens in Boston, there were 'so many pocket handkerchiefs it looked as if a snowstorm had gotten into the hall.

Times

It has it all: a spooky ghost story, a heartwarming redemption, and a great plot with a satisfyingly ending.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940194700103
Publisher:	SNR Audio
Publication date:	10/03/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Stave One

Marley's Ghost

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon' Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, his sole mourner.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name however. There it yet stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley He answered to both names. It was all the same to him.

Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, was Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? when will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his fife inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blindmen's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "no eye at all is better than an evil eye, darkmaster!"

But what did Scrooge care!

Once upon a time — of all the good days in the year, upon a Christmas Eve-old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, bitMg foggy weather and the city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already.

The door of Scrooge's countinghouse was open that he might keel) his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal litde cell beyond — a sort of tank-was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire., but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation Scrooge had of his approach.

"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"'

"Christmas a humbug, uncle! You don't mean that, I am sure."

"I do. Out upon merry Christmas. What's Christmas time to you buta time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a yearolder, and not an hour ri cher; a time for balanci ing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented deadagainst you? If I had my will, every idiot who goes about with 'MerryChristmas,' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, andburied with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"

"Uncle!"

"Nephew! Keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it mine."

"Keep it! But you don't keep it."

"Let me leave it alone, then. Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!"

"There are many things from which I might have derived good, bywhich I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest. But I amsure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round-apart from the veneration due to its sacred origin, if anything belong' ingto it can be apart from that — as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitab1e, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of theyear, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-uphearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really werefellow-travellcrs to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound onother Journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded.

"Let me hear another sound from you," said Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation. You're quite a powerful speaker, sir," he added, turning to his nephew. "I wonder you don't go into Parliament."

"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow."

Scrooge said that he would see him — yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him 'in that extremity first.

"But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why

"Why did you get married?"

"Because I fell in love."

"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!"

"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?"

"Good afternoon."

"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends?"

"Good afternoon."

"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!"

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