Manuscript of A Christmas Carol
My high school English teacher lived for Charles Dickens. Boz was book of the month club author each and every month, including summer reading lists, of sophomore year. our esteemed teacher, Mr. Mann beat into us the importance of reading each book as the first readers did, over time. So he would assign a chapter or two or three a day. As if!
My first semester final grade earned a steak dinner with teach and his wife. Our final covered Oliver Twist. Too many of my classmates saw the movie Oliver which was released about the same time. Similar but different. I still have most of the books.
One of my greatest treasures is a copy of the original 1843 manuscript of A Christmas Carol, given by my daughter last Christmas. The left hand page is typed, the right (hand written) is nearly illegible.
Today is the bicentenial of the birth of the great man.
"One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell by Dickens without laughing."
Oscar Wilde
To mark the occasion Mr. Dickens has been honored by the Royal Mail which is printing a series of 10 stamps commemorating his greatest characters.
The stamps will become available in June. Happy Birthday.
Toad
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3 comments:
Ah Dickens, great stories, pity the man himself was a bit of an arse. I can't get beyond his cruelty to his wife. He wrote about injustice and hard times, but had no difficulty in justifying his own cruel actions. Still a great wordsmith though!
Di
X
"One of my greatest treasures is a copy of the original 1843 manuscript of A Christmas Carol, given by my daughter last Christmas."
Double triple WOW. Unbelievably beautiful gift. Again, wow. I shall embarrass, nay SHAME, myself by confessing that aside from reading your manuscript, I've never read one word of Dickens. Where should I begin exploring "the great man"?
-Flo
Flo, my favorite for new kids to Dickens are The Christmas Carol. The George c. Scott movie was pretty true to the language, but the nuance hidden in the book is so much better. My second choice, again a story line you are probably somewhat familiar, is Oliver Twist. I won dinner by knowing how Bill Sykes died.
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