Scrooges Story: A Christmas Carol Continues : Book One

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See my full review here Dec 14, Lisa rated it did not like it Shelves: Indeed, I was surprised to read in his afterword of the author's devotion to A Christmas Carol , because this book is almost a satire of that work--which the author says it started out to be before he got serious about it. He didn't make enough changes.

The book takes place 20 years after Scrooge's fateful night with the Spirits, and on a short summer night. But Scrooge is almost a parody of the man who learned his lesson and said he would "honor Christmas in [his] heart, and try to keep it all the year. People think he is becoming senile and try to avoid him. Further, Scrooge's nephew Fred and clerk Bob Cratchit have become models of the Scrooge-like character that he once was, which is totally out of character with the original work. If you want to read a book that deals wonderfully with Marley's redemption, I recommend F.

William Bennett's Jacob T. Marley and not this disrespectful send-up of Dickens' wonderful tale. Nov 14, Katie Harder-schauer rated it really liked it Shelves: I received a copy of this book through the Goodreads First Reads giveaway program in the hopes that I would leave an honest review. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is one of my favorite Christmas tales it's a classic for a reason so I was excited to see how it could be taken into the future.

I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. I think, maybe I was expecting Scrooge to have relapses somewhat; I'm pretty sure most people in his position would suffer at least a bi I received a copy of this book through the Goodreads First Reads giveaway program in the hopes that I would leave an honest review. I think, maybe I was expecting Scrooge to have relapses somewhat; I'm pretty sure most people in his position would suffer at least a bit of a relapse to be quite honest. But he didn't relapse, so I didn't get what I was expecting for that simple fact alone.

I liked how the basic premise of this story was that Marley needed to effect change in more lives than just Scrooge's to escape his shackles, and it makes sense that it would be necessary considering the monumental number of people he must have shortchanged in his lifetime, and the far reaching impact of that on their descendants.

I think it's strange that Scrooge has to help him in that endeavor though, since he has clearly changed his ways and spent the past twenty years doing good for people. There are some reasons why I can still accept this being the case though, but I still think it's strange. Overall the story was fun and whimsical and stayed fairly true to the Spirit of Books Past see what I did there?

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I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for an uplifting holiday read this coming Christmas in July season. Twenty years after being visited by spirits, Scrooge is exactly the opposite as he was before the nocturnal Christmas visit 20 years before. In fact, Scrooge is so filled with the spirit of Christmas he walks around wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year every day, even in the middle of a sweltering London summer. His seasons' greetings are enough to make everyone cringe and his bankers wince as they study his declining bank balance.

They try to reason with Scrooge but he is insis Twenty years after being visited by spirits, Scrooge is exactly the opposite as he was before the nocturnal Christmas visit 20 years before. They try to reason with Scrooge but he is insistent that he must be responsible for helping the poor. While Scrooge makes merry, Bob Cratchitt is busy working and has little time for his family. Scrooge's nephew Fred, a clerk in Whitehall, also has little time or inclination for anything but his job.

When Marley next visits Scrooge he reveals that his future is nearly as bleak was it was 20 years ago. It's up to Scrooge to propose a plan that will free Marley from his chains and allow him to rest in peace. This book is something of a parody of A Christmas Story.

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It also borrows heavily from Dickens's own life and other writings Scrooge even reads David Copperfield. It takes the characters and the reader on a journey through the seedy side of 19th century London life, much like the original. A Christmas Carol is my family's favorite Christmas story so I was skeptical going into this, but I enjoyed it for the most part. Charlie Lovett's writing is pretty good. He mimics the tone of the original, borrowing phrases from the novella and twisting or changing the words around. It's a bit more light in the beginning and very heavy on the message.

If you like A Christmas Carol, you will probably enjoy this take on the story. Nov 04, Lori rated it really liked it Shelves: This was a fun book to read. This short novella takes place 20 years after A Christmas Carol.

Scrooge's Story

Ebenezer has spent these years being charitable and kind. Every day of the year he wishes the townspeople a Merry Christmas and a Happy new year. It is now June 20 years later. The ghost of Jacob Marley visits Scrooge to tell him that only five of Jabob's links have gone he has many more to go.

Scrooge wants to he This was a fun book to read. Scrooge wants to help his old business friend. He asks for the three spirits to visit him again because he has a plan. In June the spirits once again visit Ebenezer but this time Scrooge has the spirits visit people he knows who he thinks needs help to change things around. On this night characters from the original story get visits of their own from the three spirits. I won't give any spoilers. This is a very quick read.

I think that Charlie Lovett did a very good job capturing the spirit of Charles Dickens. I was not sure if i would like this book, but found myself enjoying this very much. Nov 25, Julie Durnell rated it really liked it Shelves: A great holiday read! Charlie Lovett loves Dickens and this shines through this well written novella of how Ebenezer Scrooge might have acted after his three visits from the Spirits of Christmas. The message is timeless and worthy of an annual reading just as the original Christmas Carol is.

Oct 17, Mary Lou rated it did not like it. Ridiculous exploitation of the greatest story ever written. Contrived, unrealistic, and portions practically plagiarized. Scrooge has gone from having his heart opened to being nonsensical, living in poverty, rarely putting in time at the office where Cratchit now slaves by choice , writing bad checks all over town, and wishing everyone a merry Christmas every day of the year.

Small wonder he's got people avoiding him. He decides to help Marley lose some of those chains by having the three spir Ridiculous exploitation of the greatest story ever written.

He decides to help Marley lose some of those chains by having the three spirits of Christmas visit four people from the original story: Twenty years later, they're no longer the good guys, but have all become cynical, avaricious workaholics. The story is resolved when Fred becomes a MP who happily channels your tax dollars to his welfare programs, the bankers form a foundation to cover all the bad checks Scrooge has been writing, and Bob follows in Scrooge's footsteps - stops going to the office, and instead spends long days crawling around the yard with his grandchildren.

Undoubtedly, Scrooge and Cratchit's business is going down the tubes, but no matter - they can live off of foundation donations now. There is no reason or balance in this story - it ends up with a bunch of deadbeats expecting to "do good" with other people's money. This is a story meant for those who like to feel warm and fuzzy without putting any real thought into cause and effect, or personal responsibility. As for the plagiarism, Lovett borrows heavily from the original text.

This is not a subtle tribute to Dickens, but full sentences lifted throughout the story. The only one he didn't pull out is "God bless us, everyone. I hate to trash an author who so obviously appreciates a story and an author who is also so special to me. But it's exactly because Dickens is my favorite author that I can't possibly give this "sequel" more than one star.

Dec 28, Tarissa rated it it was amazing Shelves: I really love this book. If you, or someone you know, is a fan of Charles Dickens and his classic holiday story, A Christmas Carol , then this is the book you need to get. I don't think I've ever read a modern-day published book wherein the author has a complete grasp on how to write like a Victorian-day author.

Masterfully, he has interwoven the things we love best from Dickens' story into a sequel, one that lets us explore Scrooge 2. The way L I really love this book. The way Lovett has done this book, I believe would make Charles Dickens one proud papa. I'd best recommend this book if you want a charming holiday book to get caught up in, and if you are fond of vintage writers. This is an excellent title to have on your shelf. I look forward to reading more by this author, as he seems to share the same passion for vintage classics that I do.

And I would gladly re-read this book again some year in the future, especially right after A Christmas Carol. Dec 12, Erin Al-Mehairi rated it it was amazing. If you love The Christmas Carol as I do this is a very wonderful companion piece that gives a look at what might have happened had Scrooge continued to spread his joy. This book will make you realize again the important things in life! It's excellent and a must have for any true book lover's collection.

Lovett loved Dickens and he integrates so much of Dickens' works, and the customs he brought to life we still do today, into this little novella. More to come at www. Published on 19 December, the first edition sold out by Christmas Eve ; by the end of thirteen editions had been released.

Most critics reviewed the novella favourably. The story was illicitly copied in January ; Dickens took legal action against the publishers, who went bankrupt, further reducing Dickens's small profits from the publication.

He went on to write four other Christmas stories in subsequent years. In he began public readings of the story which proved so successful he undertook further performances until , the year of his death. A Christmas Carol has never been out of print and has been translated into several languages; the story has been adapted many times for film, stage, opera and other media. A Christmas Carol captured the zeitgeist of the mid-Victorian revival of the Christmas holiday. Dickens had acknowledged the influence of the modern Western observance of Christmas and later inspired several aspects of Christmas, including family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games and a festive generosity of spirit.

The book is divided into five chapters, which Dickens titled " staves ". Scrooge, an ageing miser , dislikes Christmas and refuses a dinner invitation from his nephew Fred—the son of Fan, Scrooge's dead sister. He turns away two men who seek a donation from him to provide food and heating for the poor, and only grudgingly allows his overworked, underpaid clerk , Bob Cratchit , Christmas Day off with pay to conform to the social custom. That night Scrooge is visited at home by Marley's ghost, who wanders the Earth entwined by heavy chains and money boxes forged during a lifetime of greed and selfishness.

Marley tells Scrooge that he has a single chance to avoid the same fate: The first spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Past , takes Scrooge to Christmas scenes of Scrooge's boyhood, reminding him of a time when he was more innocent. The scenes reveal Scrooge's lonely childhood at boarding school , his relationship with his beloved sister Fan, and a Christmas party hosted by his first employer, Mr Fezziwig , who treated him like a son.

Finally, they visit a now-married Belle with her large, happy family on the Christmas Eve that Marley died. Scrooge, upset by hearing Belle's description of the man that he has become, demands that the ghost remove him from the house. The second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present , takes Scrooge to a joyous market with people buying the makings of Christmas dinner and to celebrations of Christmas in a miner's cottage and in a lighthouse. Scrooge and the ghost also visit Fred's Christmas party.

A major part of this stave is taken up with Bob Cratchit's family feast and introduces his youngest son, Tiny Tim , a happy boy who is seriously ill. The spirit informs Scrooge that Tiny Tim will die unless the course of events changes. Before disappearing, the spirit shows Scrooge two hideous, emaciated children named Ignorance and Want.

He tells Scrooge to beware the former above all and mocks Scrooge's concern for their welfare. The silent ghost reveals scenes involving the death of a disliked man whose funeral is attended by local businessmen only on condition that lunch is provided.

His charwoman , laundress and the local undertaker steal his possessions to sell to a fence. When he asks the spirit to show a single person who feels emotion over his death, he is only given the pleasure of a poor couple who rejoice that his death gives them more time to put their finances in order. When Scrooge asks to see tenderness connected with any death, the ghost shows him Bob Cratchit and his family mourning the death of Tiny Tim.

The ghost then allows Scrooge to see a neglected grave, with a tombstone bearing Scrooge's name. Sobbing, Scrooge pledges to change his ways. Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning a changed man. He spends the afternoon with Fred's family and anonymously sends a large turkey to the Cratchit home for Christmas dinner.

The following day he gives Cratchit an increase in pay and begins to become a father figure to Tiny Tim. From then on Scrooge treats everyone with kindness, generosity and compassion, embodying the spirit of Christmas. The writer Charles Dickens was born to a middle class family which got into financial difficulties as a result of the spendthrift nature of his father John. In John was committed to the Marshalsea , a debtors' prison in Southwark , London.

Dickens, aged 12, was forced to pawn his collection of books, leave school and work at a dirty and rat-infested shoe-blacking factory. The change in circumstances gave him what his biographer, Michael Slater, describes as a "deep personal and social outrage", which heavily influenced his writing and outlook. By the end of Dickens was a well-established author, having written six major works, [n 1] as well as several short stories, novellas and other pieces. Celebrating the Christmas season had been growing in popularity through the Victorian era. Their practice was copied in many homes across the country.

Dickens had an interest in Christmas, and his first story on the subject was "Christmas Festivities", published in Bell's Weekly Messenger in ; the story was then published as "A Christmas Dinner" in Sketches by Boz In the episode, a Mr Wardle relates the tale of Gabriel Grub, a lonely and mean-spirited sexton , who undergoes a Christmas conversion after being visited by goblins who show him the past and future.

Dickens was not the first author to celebrate the Christmas season in literature. Several works may have had an influence on the writing of A Christmas Carol , including two Douglas Jerrold essays: Dickens was touched by the lot of poor children in the middle decades of the 19th century. It was a parliamentary report exposing the effects of the Industrial Revolution upon working class children. Horrified by what he read, Dickens planned to publish an inexpensive political pamphlet tentatively titled, An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man's Child , but changed his mind, deferring the pamphlet's production until the end of the year.

In a fundraising speech on 5 October at the Manchester Athenaeum , Dickens urged workers and employers to join together to combat ignorance with educational reform, [21] and realised in the days following that the most effective way to reach the broadest segment of the population with his social concerns about poverty and injustice was to write a deeply felt Christmas narrative rather than polemical pamphlets and essays.

By mid Dickens began to suffer from financial problems. Sales of Martin Chuzzlewit were falling off, and his wife, Catherine , was pregnant with their fifth child. George Cruikshank , the illustrator who had earlier worked with Dickens on Sketches by Boz and Oliver Twist , introduced him to the caricaturist John Leech. By 24 October Dickens invited Leech to work on A Christmas Carol , and four hand-coloured etchings and four black-and-white wood engravings by the artist accompanied the text.

The central character of A Christmas Carol is Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly London-based moneylender, [30] described in the story as "a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! This psychological conflict may be responsible for the two radically different Scrooges in the tale—one a cold, stingy and greedy semi-recluse, the other a benevolent, sociable man.

Scrooge could also be based on two misers: Elwell, Scrooge's views on the poor are a reflection of those of the demographer and political economist Thomas Malthus , [36] while the miser's questions "Are there no prisons? And the Union workhouses? The treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?

There are literary precursors for Scrooge in Dickens's own works. Peter Ackroyd , Dickens's biographer, sees similarities between the character and the elder Martin Chuzzlewit character, although the miser is "a more fantastic image" than the Chuzzlewit patriarch; Ackroyd observes that Chuzzlewit's transformation to a charitable figure is a parallel to that of the miser. The grave was for Ebenezer Lennox Scroggie, whose job was given as a meal man—a corn merchant; Dickens misread the inscription as "mean man".

When Dickens was young he lived near a tradesman's premises with the sign "Goodge and Marney", which may have provided the name for Scrooge's former business partner. The transformation of Scrooge is central to the story. Other writers, including Kelly, consider that Dickens put forward a "secular vision of this sacred holiday".

Jordan argues that A Christmas Carol shows what Dickens referred to in a letter to Foster as his " Carol philosophy, cheerful views, sharp anatomisation of humbug, jolly good temper Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in response to British social attitudes towards poverty, particularly child poverty, and wished to use the novella as a means to put forward his arguments against it.

Army veteran who served during the Vietnam War Era. He worked in health care administration and lived in Rochester, N.

The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge

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