Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, generally considered one of the greatest of the XIXth century. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic novels and characters. Charles Dickens published over a dozen major novels, a large number of short stories (including a number of Christmas-themed stories), a handful of plays, and several non-fiction books. Dickens's novels were initially serialised (= published in parts) in weekly and monthly magazines, then reprinted in standard book formats.
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol is a novella (= short novel) by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 19 December 1843.
It is likely that A Christmas Carol stands as his best-known story, with new adaptations almost every year. This simple morality tale sums up for many the true meaning of Christmas. It also added archetypal figures (Scrooge, Tiny Tim, the Christmas ghosts) to the Western cultural consciousness. A prominent phrase from the tale, 'Merry Christmas', was popularised following the appearance of the story. The term 'Scrooge' became a synonym for miser, and 'Bah! Humbug!' (= patrañas) as dismissive of the festive spirit. According to some historians, the current state of the observance of Christmas is largely the result of a XIXth century revival of the holiday spearheaded (= encabezado) by A Christmas Carol. Dickens influenced many aspects of Christmas that are celebrated today among Western nations, such as family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games, and a festive generosity of spirit.
The story has been adapted to other media including film, opera, ballet, a Broadway musical, a BBC mime production starring Marcel Marceau, and Benjamin Britten's 1947 chamber orchestra composition Men of Goodwill: Variations on 'A Christmas Carol'.
The tale begins on a Christmas Eve in 1843 exactly seven years after the death of Ebenezer Scrooge's business partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge is established within the first chapter as a man who has no place in his life for kindness, compassion, charity or benevolence. He hates Christmas, calling it 'humbug', refuses his nephew Fred's dinner invitation, and rudely turns away two gentlemen who seek a donation from him to provide a Christmas dinner for the Poor. His only "Christmas gift" is allowing his overworked (= has worked too much), underpaid clerk Bob Cratchit Christmas Day off with pay - which he does only to keep with social custom, Scrooge considering it a poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December!
Returning home that evening, Scrooge is visited by Marley's ghost. Marley warns Scrooge to change his ways lest (= in order to prevent that) he undergo the same miserable afterlife as himself. Scrooge is then visited by three additional ghosts - each in its turn, and each visit detailed in a separate chapter – who accompany him to various scenes with the hope of achieving his transformation.
The first of the spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge to Christmas scenes of his boyhood and youth, which stir (= makes feel) the old miser's (= tacaño) gentle and tender side by reminding him of a time when he was more innocent. They also show what made Scrooge the miser that he is, and why he dislikes Christmas.
The second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to several differing scenes - a joy-filled market of people buying the makings of Christmas dinner, the celebration of Christmas in a miner's cottage (= small house in the countryside), and a lighthouse. A major part of this chapter is taken up with the family feast of Scrooge's impoverished clerk Bob Cratchit, introducing his youngest son, Tiny Tim, who is seriously ill but cannot receive treatment due to Scrooge's unwillingness to pay Cratchit a decent wage.
The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, harrows (= rastrilla) Scrooge with dire (= bad and serious) visions of the future if he does not learn and act upon what he has witnessed - including Tiny Tim's death. Scrooge's own neglected and untended (= descuidada / abandonada) grave is revealed, prompting (= causing) the miser to aver (= asegurar) that he will change his ways in hopes of changing these shadows of what may be.
In the final chapter, Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning with joy and love in his heart, then spends the day with his nephew's family after anonymously sending a prize (= good to win a competition) turkey to the Cratchit home for Christmas dinner. Scrooge has become a different man overnight and now treats his fellow men with kindness, generosity and compassion, gaining a reputation as a man who embodies (= represents) the spirit of Christmas.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/theteacher/2012/02/120207_teacher_dickens.shtml
"LONDON. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of
the earth. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire (an area with wet earth). Horses,
scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers (= what is put at the side of a horse's eyes so that it can only see forward). Fog everywhere."
Charles Dickens, Bleak House
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