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News Article  
A Christmas Carol still makes Christmas a family festival
By Larry LeMasters

Ebenezer Scrooge items are popular collectibles among Christmas collectors. Scrooge is the main character in Charles Dickens’ classic novel, A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost-Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol.

Originally published in 1843, A Christmas Carol is the story of Ebenezer Scrooge’s transformation from a miserable old miser to a jolly Christmas celebrator. Four “spirits” (the “Ghost” part of the title) visit Scrooge on Christmas Eve to facilitate his transformation.

The first spirit is that of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, who, as Scrooge noted, “has been dead these seven years,” having “died seven years ago, this very night.” After Marley’s spirit warns Scrooge, “You will be haunted by Three Spirits,” the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come (Future) appear to Scrooge.

The haunting of Scrooge is what sets A Christmas Story as a “Ghost-Story of Christmas.” Scrooge is forced to confront man’s greatest fear — the misery he has made of his own life by viewing events from his past, his present, and, perhaps most scary of all, his future.

After witnessing the poor choices he made as a youth and the loneliness and misery he has caused and still causes in his present life, Scrooge is forced to see his mortality, coming face to face with the knowledge that we, each and everyone of us, are what we forge in life. Scrooge pleads with the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, “Are these the shadows of the things that will be or are they shadows of the things that may be only?”

Finally, Scrooge asks the Ghost the question that so many “reformers” have asked themselves throughout the span of mankind, “If the wrongful courses of a man’s life be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me! Why show me this, if I am past all hope? Good spirit,” cried Scrooge, “assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life!”

We all know the glorious ending; Scrooge was given a second chance at life, and, good to his word, he honored Christmas in his heart all the year.”

Charles Dickens has been called, “The man who discovered Christmas.” In all of its many forms, A Christmas Carol has become the second most popular tale of Christmas ever told, and Ebenezer Scrooge is third behind Santa Claus and Jesus as the most recognized Christmas character of all times.

Each year collectors continue Scrooge’s recognition and fame by searching for new or excitingly old Scrooge collectibles. The oldest Scrooge collectible is still the most exciting to collect. It is a first edition copy of A Christmas Carol. First published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 (illustrated by John Leech), this prized collectible was recently offered on eBay for $9,500.

As all bibliophiles know, the only Dickens’ collectible truly worth having is one of his books. Collecting Dickens’ Christmas classic can be easy and inexpensive since modern printings of A Christmas Carol may be purchased for as little as $6 at Amazon.com, which, in today’s world, is an inexpensive collectible. Other new printings of A Christmas Carol you may want to add to your collection include Disney’s Christmas Carol ($3, used), Mr. Dickens and His Carol: a Novel ($12), and A Christmas Carol: the Graphic Novel ($13).

For collectors with deeper pockets, J.M. Dent & Co. published A Christmas Carol in 1906 with illustrations by C.E. Brock. This printing is widely considered to have one of the prettiest bindings and best illustrations of any Dickens novel. It is valued at $4,500.

In 1962 Arthur Rackham released his illustrated version of A Christmas Carol. Bound in three-quarter leather with marbled paper, this is another beautiful book, and compared to first editions, it is quite inexpensive at $365.

There are numerous issues and printings of A Christmas Carol, allowing collections to appear like small libraries. In fact, since its initial publication, A Christmas Carol has never been out of print and has been translated into a wide variety of languages.

According to historian Ronald Hutton, modern Christmas observations are largely the result of a mid-Victorian Christmas revival, which was spearheaded by the publication of A Christmas Carol.

Dickens depicted Christmas as a family-centered festival of generosity and that image remains today. And, famed novelist William Makepeace Thackeray called A Christmas Carol, “a national benefit, and to every man and woman who reads it, a personal kindness.”

Whether as one book or a collection of 50, having A Christmas Carol in your home is equivalent to honoring Christmas in your heart all the year. For that, God bless Charles Dickens for his gift to us, and as Tiny Tim observed, “God bless us, each everyone!”

12/9/2018