"Yes, there were many other Dickenses: a clever Dickens, an industrious Dickens, a public-spirited Dickens but this was the great one. Sapsea is one of the golden things stored up for us in a better world. You could scarcely have such immortal folly as that in a world where there is also death. In no human churchyard will you find that invaluable tombstone indeed, you could scarcely find it in any world where there are churchyards. And ask thyself this question, Canst thou do likewise? If not, with a blush retire.' Not the wildest tale in Pickwick contains such an impossibility as that Dickens dare scarcely have introduced it, even as one of Jingle's lies. Sapsea, that which describes her as 'the reverential wife' of Thomas Sapsea, speaks of her consistency in 'looking up to him,' and ends with the words, spaced out so admirably on the tombstone, 'Stranger pause. I mean the frantic and inconceivable epitaph of Mrs. In the centre of this otherwise reasonable and rather melancholy book, this grey story of a good clergyman and the quiet Cloisterham Towers, Dickens has calmly inserted one entirely delightful and entirely insane passage. And in this last dark and secretive story of Edwin Drood he makes one splendid and staggering appearance, like a magician saying farewell to mankind. On the 149th anniversary of Charles Dickens's death, here are some pertinent thoughts from his great admirer G. And so, a merry Christmas to you all, not just today but always! Watching for such incidences as we read him is one enjoyable way to "keep all the year," as Scrooge promises to do. No doubt this was a nod to the Christmasy atmosphere that Dickens was known for.Īs Boze Herrington recently wrote of Dickens at All the (Dickensian) Year Round, "Christmas awoke something nameless and secret in him," something that makes it show up again and again in his stories as a pivotal time in people's lives. Occasionally, even a book that doesn't have a Christmas scene in it have film adaptations where Christmas scenes have been added! One well-known example is the 1935 A Tale of Two Cities, which places an important interaction between Sydney and Lucie on Christmas Eve. Edwin vanishing (and most likely murdered) on Christmas Eve in The Mystery of Edwin Drood.Pip bringing Magwitch food, and later seeing him get arrested, on Christmas Day, in Great Expectations.David and Agnes getting engaged at Christmastime in David Copperfield.The Christmas chapters in The Pickwick Papers, which include a goblin story that gives us a foretaste of the Carol. ![]() Besides Scrooge's Christmas ordeal, and the other Christmas books, we have. Interestingly, I found at least one reference in every single one of the novels! The majority of them were just passing references, but a few of them were significant. But the other day, inspired by a Twitter conversation about how Great Expectations is also a Christmas book (or at least part of it is), I went looking for Christmas references in other Dickens books as well. 'Tis the season, as you know, when the world is rereading and rewatching A Christmas Carol.
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