This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2021) |
![]() Frontispiece of first edition, 1848 | |
Author | Charles Dickens |
---|---|
Original title | The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-Time |
Illustrator | Sir John Tenniel Frank Stone William Clarkson Stanfield John Leech |
Language | English |
Genre | Novella |
Publisher | Bradbury & Evans |
Publication date | 19 December 1848 |
Publication place | England |
Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
Pages | 188 pp |
Preceded by | The Battle of Life |
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain: A Fancy for Christmas-Time is a novella by Charles Dickens first published in 1848. It is the fifth and last of Dickens's Christmas novellas.
Redlaw is a teacher of chemistry who often broods over wrongs done him and grief from his past. He is attended to by his servants William Swidger; Swidger's 87-year-old father Philip; and Swidger's wife Milly, who serves as cook and who, with the father, helps decorate Redlaw's rooms with holly.
He is haunted by a spirit, who is not so much a ghost as Redlaw's phantom twin and is "an awful likeness of himself...with his features, and his bright eyes, and his grizzled hair, and dressed in the gloomy shadow of his dress..." This Ghost appears and proposes to Redlaw that he can allow him to "forget the sorrow, wrong, and trouble you have known...to cancel their remembrance..." The Ghost also promises that Redlaw will have the power to bestow this same gift on anyone he meets. Redlaw is hesitant at first, but finally agrees.
After the Ghost bestows his gift, a child dressed in rags with no shoes appears in Redlaw's house. He seems terrified of Redlaw but becomes his unwilling companion.
The Tetterbys live in their shop, which has been all manner of unsuccessful businesses in the past. They have many children and are quite poor. Mrs. Tetterby comes home from marketing and confesses her deep shame that she fantasized about never having married Mr. Tetterby when she saw all the things she could not afford.
Redlaw has followed her inside the house and startles the couple. He inquires after their boarder, Mr. Denham, who is one of his students. Denham has been severely ill. Redlaw visits with him and bestows his gift of forgetting all that Denham has suffered. When Milly arrives to tend to Denham, Redlaw has started to realize that his gift is more of a curse. He begs Denham to help him hide so that he does not curse Milly with forgetting her woes.
Denham is rude and dismissive of Milly, who has been his faithful nurse over the course of his illness. Redlaw is now horrified by how transformed people are when they forget the pain in their lives.
He pays the mysterious child to take him to the Swidgers. With no pockets to keep his coins in, the child puts them in his mouth. At the Swidgers' lodgings, Redlaw bestows his gift. The 87-year old patriarch goes from doting on his eldest son who is suffering from a fatal illness to not recognizing him at all.
Redlaw is disgusted with all the misery he has caused by making people forget. He begs the Ghost to remove the gift from everyone he has infected, even if it means that Redlaw will remain forgetful. The Ghost explains that the barefooted child is the embodiment of Redlaw's curse of forgetfulness. When mankind cannot remember its sorrows, it becomes insensate and feral. The child is an example of what indifference reaps.
Redlaw takes pity on the child and covers him as he sleeps. The curse is lifted, and all of the characters' memories are restored. Denham apologizes to Milly for being so dreadfully ungrateful.
Redlaw realizes that "Christmas is a time in which, of all times in the year, the memory of every remediable sorrow, wrong, and trouble in the world around us, should be active with us," and he makes peace with his painful memories.
In what would be the first public performance of the technique known as Pepper's ghost, John Henry Pepper staged a Christmas Eve production of the play in 1862 at the Royal Polytechnic Institution (currently known as the University of Westminster) in 309 Regent Street. It was very well received, if only for the new apparatus's ability to project a ghost so as to look as though it is interacting with those on stage. [1]
A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. It recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. In the process, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.
The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, commonly referred to as The Chimes, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol. It is the second in his series of "Christmas books", five novellas with strong social and moral messages that he published during the 1840s. In addition to A Christmas Carol and The Chimes, the Christmas books include The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (1848).
The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home is a novella by Charles Dickens, published by Bradbury and Evans, and released 20 December 1845 with illustrations by Daniel Maclise, John Leech, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield and Edwin Henry Landseer. Dickens began writing the book around 17 October 1845 and finished it by 1 December. Like all of Dickens's Christmas books, it was published in book form, not as a serial.
A Christmas Carol is a 1938 American drama film adaptation of Charles Dickens's 1843 novella of the same name, starring Reginald Owen as Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who learns the error of his ways on Christmas Eve after visitations by three spirits. The film was directed by Edwin L. Marin from a script by Hugo Butler.
Christmas Carol: The Movie is a 2001 British live action/animated film based on Charles Dickens's 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. Directed by Jimmy T. Murakami, the film features the voices of numerous actors including Simon Callow, Kate Winslet, Kate's sister Beth Winslet, and Nicolas Cage. The film was a critical and commercial failure upon release.
The Battle of Life: A Love Story is an 1846 novella by Charles Dickens. It is the fourth of his five "Christmas Books", coming after The Cricket on the Hearth and is followed by The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain.
Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol is an eight-minute animated film produced by Warner Bros. Television and DePatie–Freleng Enterprises, and aired on CBS on November 27, 1979 as the first segment of the Christmas special, Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales.
The Ghost of Christmas Past is a fictional character in Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. The Ghost is one of three spirits that appear to miser Ebenezer Scrooge to offer him a chance of redemption.
The Ghost of Christmas Present is a fictional character in Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. The Ghost is one of three spirits that appear to miser Ebenezer Scrooge to offer him a chance of redemption.
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is a fictional character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. The Ghost is the last of the three spirits that appear to miser Ebenezer Scrooge to offer him a chance of redemption.
A Christmas Carol is a 2000 British crime fantasy television film, written by Peter Bowker, that first broadcast on ITV on 20 December 2000. The film is a modern adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1843 novella of the same name, and stars Ross Kemp in the role of Eddie Scrooge, a cruel and unscrupulous loan shark who brings misery to the residents of a poor housing estate, before he is haunted by ghosts one Christmas Eve.
A Flintstones Christmas Carol is a 1994 American animated made-for-television film featuring characters from The Flintstones franchise, and based on the 1843 novella A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Produced by Hanna-Barbera, it features the voices of Henry Corden, Jean Vander Pyl and Frank Welker. It first aired November 21, 1994, in syndication.
It's Never Too Late is a 1953 Italian comedy film directed by Filippo Walter Ratti. The film is based on the 1843 novella A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
"The Haunted House" is a set of short stories published in 1859 for the weekly periodical All the Year Round. It was "Conducted by Charles Dickens", with Charles Dickens writing the opening and closing stories, framing stories by Dickens himself and five other authors.
Karroll's Christmas is a 2004 American made-for-television Christmas comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan. It is based on the 1843 novella A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It aired on A&E on December 14, 2004.
The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol is a 2011 American animated short film based on The Smurfs comic book series created by the Belgian comics artist Peyo, and is an adaptation Charles Dickens's 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. The animated short was written by Todd Berger and directed by Troy Quane, and it stars the voices of George Lopez, Jack Angel, Melissa Sturm, Fred Armisen, Gary Basaraba, Anton Yelchin and Hank Azaria. The film was produced by Sony Pictures Animation with the animation by Sony Pictures Imageworks and Duck Studios. The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol was released on DVD on December 2, 2011, attached to The Smurfs film.
An American Christmas Carol is a 1979 American made-for-television fantasy drama film directed by Eric Till and loosely based on Charles Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol.
A Christmas Carol is a 2019 British dark fantasy drama television miniseries based on the 1843 novella by Charles Dickens. The three-part series is written by Steven Knight with Tom Hardy and Ridley Scott among the executive producers. It began airing on BBC One in the UK on 22 December 2019 and concluded two days later on 24 December 2019. Prior to this, it aired in the US on FX on 19 December 2019, with all three episodes shown consecutively as a single television film.
Online editions