Philip V. Allingham, Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Education, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario

Richard Kelly's 2003 Broadview Press edition contains, in addition to the text and an introduction, selections from relevant writings by Dickens, contemporary reviews, and other materials.

Emerging from Dickens’s preoccupation in the early 1840s with issues of poverty, ignorance, and cruelty, this classic story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, visited by four ghosts on Christmas Eve, was first published in 1843 to strong reviews and popular success. The Broadview edition uses the first edition with original drawings by John Leech.

This edition also includes Washington Irving’s descriptions of English Christmas customs; essays by Dickens on Christmas, and his essay “A Walk in a Workhouse”; a British government report on the lives of child labourers; a speech by Dickens on the importance of educating the poor; selected letters; contemporary reviews; and a listing of film, television, and radio adaptations of the book.

A Select Bibliography for A Christmas Carol (1843 to 2024)

Allingham, Philip V. "The Naming of Names in Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol." Dickens Quarterly 4:1 (1987): 15-20.

Bertman, Stephen. "Dante's Role in the Genesis of Dickens's A Christmas Carol." Dickens Quarterly 24, 3 (September 2007), 167-175.

Bolton, Philip H. "A Christmas Carol." Dickens Dramatized. Boston, G. K. Hall, 1987 Pp. 234-267.

Butt, John. "Dickens's Christmas Books." Pope, Dickens and Others: Essays and Addresses. Edinburgh: Edinburgh U. P., 1969. Pp. 127-148.

Callahan, Jr., Charles W. "Tiny Tim: The Child with a Crippling Fatal Illness." Dickensian 89, 3 (Winter, 1993): 214-217.

Collins, Philip. "Carol Philosophy, Cheerful Views." Études Anglaises 23, 2 (1970), 158-157.

Davis, Paul. The Lives and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge. New Haven: Yale U. P., 1990.

Dickens, Charles. Christmas Books and Sketches by Boz Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People [Seven Sketches from "Our Parish"]. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition. Boston: James R. Osgood, 1875 [rpt. of the 1867 Ticknor & Fields volume].

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1878. XVII: 1-37.

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol — A Ghost Story of Christmas. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1868.

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by A. E. Abbey. The Household Edition. 17 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876. III: 11-39.

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Illustrated by John Leech. London: Chapman and Hall, 1843.

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol in The Christmas Books, 2 vols., ed. Michael Slater. Illustrated by John Leech. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993. Vol. II: pp. 33-134.

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. London: William Heinemann, 1915.

Dickensian: A Christmas Carol. 150th Anniversary issue 89, 3 (Winter, 1993).

Goldberg, Michael. "A Philosophy of Christmas: A Christmas Carol and The Chimes. Carlyle and Dickens. Athens: Georgia U. P., 1972. Pp. 32-44.

Hancher, Michael. "Reading the Visual Text: A Christmas Carol." The Yale University Library Gazette, 72, 1/2 (October 1999), 21-40.

Marcus, Stephen. Dickens from Pickwick to Dombey. New York: Clarion; Simon and Schuster, 1965.

Miller, J. Hillis. "The Genres of A Christmas Carol." Dickensian 89, 3 (Winter, 1993): 193-206.

Parker, David. "Christmas Books and Stories, 1844 to 1854." Christmas and Charles Dickens. New York: AMS Press, 2005. Pp. 221-282.

Patten, Robert L. Dickens, Death, and Christmas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. 344 pages. ISBN 978-0-19-286266-2. [Review]

Slater, Michael. "Introduction to A Christmas Carol." The Christmas Books, 2 vols. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971, rpt. 1978. Vol. 1, 33-36.

Slater, Michael. "A Note on the Text and Annotation." "Notes to A Christmas Carol." Dickens's Christmas Books. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1971. Rpt., 1978. Vol. 1: xxvii-xxviii; 257-261.

Solberg, Sarah A. "'Text Dropped into the Woodcuts': Dickens' Christmas Books." Dickens Studies Annual 8 (1980): 103-118.

Thomas, Deborah A. Chapter 4, "The Chord of the Christmas Season." Dickens and The Short Story. Philadelphia: U. Pennsylvania Press, 1982, 62-93.

Tatham, David. "John Leech's Illustrations." [Houghton Library, Harvard University.] Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Intro. John Mortimer. A facsimile edition of the autograph manuscript in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. New Haven and London: Yale U. P., 1995. xiv-xxiii.

Thomas, Deborah A. Chapter 4, "The Chord of the Christmas Season." Dickens and The Short Story. Philadelphia: U. Pennsylvania Press, 1982, 62-93.

Tillotson, Kathleen. "A Background for A Christmas Carol." Dickensian 89, 3 (Winter, 1993): 165-169.

Tillotson, Kathleen. "The Middle Years from Carol to Copperfield." Dickens Memorial Lectures 1970, Supplement to Dickensian 66, 3 (September, 1970): 7-19.

Wilson, Edmund. "Dickens: The Two Scrooges." The Wound and the Bow: Seven Studies in Literature." Cambridge, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1941. Pp. 1-104.


Created 28 February 2003
Last modified 26 August 2024