A Christmas Carol

♦ Overview ♦

A Christmas Carol makes a serious plea for generosity. For Dickens, Christmas is essentially a secular holiday�but one that, behind all the laughter and festivities, should bring out the best of human nature. Through the character of Scrooge he offers concrete comic proof of how distorted a selfish person can become. Dickens generally wrote books several hundred pages In length, but this brief Christmas fable reveals both his typical themes and his characteristic early style. He meant to entertain and he succeeds, but his humanitarianism makes itself felt as well. While he subscribed to the beliefs of his time, his genius transcended them and made A Christmas Carol as relevant now as it was in Victorian England.

ISBN 0-933833-11-3 Copyright ©, 1990. by Walton Beacham All rights to this book are reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or in any information or storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information write the publisher, Beacham Publishing. Inc., 2100 "S" Street, N.W.. Washington. D.C. 20008. All Rights Reserved.