Davis, Paul. The Lives and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge. New Haven: Yale U.P., 1990. Print
This extensive text outlines the cultural impact that A Christmas Carol has had, both in its time and every year since. It gives adequate information to show exactly how Dickens touched people and Christmas in a long-lasting way.Ferguson, Susan L. “Dickens’s Public Readings and the Victorian Author.” Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 41.4 (2001) 729-49. Project MUSE. Web. 3 Apr. 2012.
In this essay, Susan Ferguson discusses Dickens’s public appearances that were wildly popular in Great Britain and America between 1853 and his death in 1870. Via these appearances and readings, Dickens assumed the three roles of actor, reader, and author. His readings helped to make Victorian drama more publicly acceptable. As a reader, Dickens bridged the gap between the author and his audience. And as an author, his public appearance reinforced Dickens’s control over his texts.
Gilbert, Elliot L. “The Ceremony of Innocence: Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. PMLA. 90.1 1975): 22-31. Print.
Gilbert discusses “the Scrooge problem”—the unbelievable nature of his speedy transformation into a new man. He argues that the story could not work in the “real world,” and his opinion is a refreshing rebuttal to the overall positive writing on Dickens’s work.
Guida, Fred. A Christmas Carol and Its Adaptations: A Critical Examination of Dickens’s Story and Its Productions on Screen and Television. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2000. Print.
This book focuses on modern adaptations of the classic, but before that, the author dives into the important literary roots that Dickens came from to write his work.Gurney, Peter J. "‘Rejoicing in Potatoes’: The Politics of Consumption in England During the ‘Hungry Forties'" Past and Present 203.1 (2009): 99-136. Oxford Journals. Oxford University Press. Web. 4 Apr. 2012.
During the Hungry Forties this time, millions of the working class were starving because they could not afford to buy bread. This resulted in a group called the Anti-Corn Law League, whose purpose was to fight against the Corn Laws as well as provide propaganda depicting the starving millions. Because of the workers inability to purchase bread and their dependence on potatoes, many feared that the diet would lead to producing uncivilized workers who might even resort to cannibalism because they would be sustaining themselves on the same diet as the “uncivilized Irish”.
Hancher, Michael. "Grafting a Christmas Carol." Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 48.4 (2008): 813-27. Project MUSE. Web. 29 Mar. 2012.
A group of publishers and printers created the magazine, Parley’s Illuminated Library, with the aim of providing the masses with cheap adaptations of popular stories. Although The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge were pirated for the magazines, Dickens hesitated to file law suits, however, he was outraged when A Christmas Carol was plagiarized. Dickens lost several hundred pounds in law suits that did not result in protecting A Christmas Carol from plagiarism. However, Hancher feels that these plagiarized versions of stories were beneficial to the masses, despite being detrimental to Dickens.
Hearn, Michael Patrick, ed. Introduction. The Annotated Christmas Carol: A Christmas Carol in Prose. By Charles Dickens. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2004. xiii-cxiii. Print.
This book, before launching into an annotated version of the classic, discusses again the place Dickens’ book took within the atmosphere of the time. The specific accounts of Dickens’s contemporaries’ opinions are particularly helpful.
Jaffe, Audrey. “Spectacular Sympathy: Visuality and Ideology in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.” PMLA. 109.2 (1994): 254-265. Print.
This article seeks to show how elements of Dickens’s work carry cultural meaning and value. What the book represented within it had powerful effects on the way the work was accepted. This article showed the place the Carol had among other works.
Kallay, Geza. “"What Wilt Thou Do, Old Man?" — Being Sick Unto Death: Scrooge, King Lear, and Kierkegaard.” Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas. 9.2 (2011). Print.
This article really evidenced the lasting effect that A Christmas Carol continues to have on people today, and even still in modern criticism. It made evident the meaning that can be found in such a short book whose message is still looked at today.
Langbauer, Laurie. “Ethics and Theory: Suffering Children in Dickens, Dostoevsky, and Le Guin.” ELH 75.1 (2008): 89-108. Project MUSE. Web. 4 Apr. 2012.
The personal ethics of Dickens, Dostoevsky, and Le Guin are reflected in the ethics of their narratives. In her section on Charles Dickens, Langbauer suggests that the scenes of suffering children within A Christmas Carol have everything to do with Dickens’s own personal suffering as a child as his family was impoverished and he was forced to work to help support his own family at a young age.
McGreevy, Patrick. “Place in the American Christmas.” Geographical Review. 80.1 (1990): 32-42. Print.
This article highlights Christmas from many angles, but most effective for our purpose is his mention of the way Dickens affected the holiday.
Moore, Tara. “Starvation in Victorian Christmas Fiction.” Victorian Literature and Culture 36.2 (2008): 489-505. Cambridge Journals. Cambridge University Press. Web. 4 Apr. 2012.
Tara Moore's article is centered on 19th century Christmas literature which depicts striking images of Great Britain's starvation in contrast with the traditional feasts enjoyed by the upper and middle class. This literature rose mainly from the 1840's when the Corn Laws were enacted, which placed a levy upon bread. The Corn Laws caused a huge famine within the country. Many authors rose up to protest through the depictions in their novels. Charles Dickens was one of the most prominent of these authors, and he uses food in A Christmas Carol as a device to identify social classes.
Morgentaler, Goldie. “Dickens and Dance in the 1840’s.” Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas 9.2 (2011): 253-66. Project MUSE. Web. 3 Apr. 2012.
Morgentaler focuses her essay on the role of public dances within the society of 1840’s London. Dickens chooses to incorporate dance scenes within his novels because he believes that dancing promotes good social relations as well as good physical health. However, the dance scenes he chooses to include in his novels are somewhat unrealistic because (especially within A Christmas Carol) their depictions are brought about by spirits. Although unrealistic within the novel, Dickens is promoting the idea of these sorts of dances to improve the deplorable states in which many were living in London during the Hungry Forties.
Sammon, Paul. The “Christmas Carol” Trivia Book: Everything you ever wanted to know about every version of the Dickens Classic. New York: Citadel Press, 1994. Print.
Just as the title describes, this book addresses every major creation based on the Carol. The author speaks briefly but unreservedly about the book in its time and why that affects us into the present.
Standiford, Les. The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits. New York: Crown, 2008. Ebook Reader.
This book deals with how A Christmas Carol came to be and also how it came to be one of Western literature’s best-loved novels. Dickens suffered through an impoverished childhood and continued to be poor into his own marriage and the start of his family life. Dickens had A Christmas Carol published with money from his own pocket as well as oversaw every bit of its construction (illustrations, binding, etc.). In four days, every copy (Dickens had 6,000 copies made) of A Christmas Carol was sold. Chapman and Hall rushed through a second printing of the book, and even a third before the New Year. In short, A Christmas Carol was a huge success, and brought at least temporary relief to Dickens’s financial worries.
