A Christmas Carol

"Paraclete Press has created a stocking stuffer sure to convey the holiday spirit—an affordable paperback edition of Charles Dickens'  A Christmas Carol featuring the illustrations that adorned the first edition 173 years ago. Dickens introduced readers to heartless Ebenezer Scrooge, his kind-hearted clerk, Bob Cratchit, lame Tiny Tim and host of spirits in "A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost-Story of Christmas" back on Dec. 19, 1843. With themes of rebirth and redemption, A Christmas Carol helped accelerate social reform in 19th-century England - particularly regarding such issues as debtors' prisons and workers' rights. Dickens gave readings from A Christmas Carol during book tours. He read from his holiday tale before a sold-out crowd of 1,300 at the old Haynes Opera House and Music Hall at the corner of Pynchon and Main streets in downtown Springfield on March 20, 1868. Dickens walked about the streets of Springfield, staying at the Massasoit House, now the site of the Paramount Theater, and spent some of his time checking out the boat houses along the Connecticut River. He left by train for Worcester to continue a grueling tour of America, which biographers believe contributed to his death two years later." —Ray Kelly, The Republican