Recently I attended a wonderful production of A Christmas Carol at The Gate Theatre in Dublin. Quite a few of these blog posts have been written in the wake of me visiting some great city and this is the follow-up to my previous post about my visit to the Museum of Literature Ireland (I was busy that day, a sequel was required). This also seemed the ideal way to celebrate the festive season and Charles Dickens is one of my all time literary idols (Beside Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Kurt Vonnegut, Emily Dickinson…it is in fact quite a long list and perhaps some day I shall publish it in full).
The famous ghost story has been adapted countless times for stage and screen and is as much a staple of the holidays as it is one of the most famous works of one of the most popular authors in English literature. I have always had a soft spot for Christmas movies and specials and I try to watch a few every year (I will be sitting down to an old favourite later this very night-I won’t say which one). I have seen many of the aforementioned film adaptations of A Christmas Carol but it was not until my early 20s when I finally sat down to read the novella itself (I’m 24). I had received an attractive 1945 edition with the original illustrations by John Leech as an early Christmas present that year and realising I could read through it in about 2 sittings I sat down with some tea and experienced the story of Ebenezer Scrooge and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future on the page. I was already a BA student at the time and had already read and loved some works of Dickens. To this day Great Expectations remains firmly on my list of top 10 novels I have read. However, it was reading this familiar seasonal tale as it was first gifted to the world in December 1843 that cemented my love for his writings and has made Victorian literature one of my favourite areas of study. There is not much I can say about the novella here in this little blog post that has not been said before; it is an uplifting and thought-provoking tale that examines human nature and encapsulates the world of Victorian London as only Dickens could. The wide appeal beyond the academic is the simple moral lesson that people are capable of doing good in the world, if even the “scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner” (10) Scrooge can change for the better, perhaps there is hope for humanity and hope is the gift we all sometimes need most.
This will be my last blog post for 2019 so I will end it by wishing any and all readers Happy Holidays and all the best for 2020. See you all then.
feature image: Outside The Gate Theatre Dublin attending A Christmas Carol
The Scholar’s Notebook 
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