Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History A Christmas Carol: The original manuscriptThe Project Gutenberg eBook of A Christmas Carol This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: A Christmas Carol Author: Charles Dickens Illustrator: John Leech Release date: October 30, 2009 [eBook #30368] Most recently updated: October 24, 2024 Language: English Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30368 Credits: Produced by Iona Vaughan, David T. Jones and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CAROL *** A CHRISTMAS CAROL THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT Charles Dickens [Illustration] _A Facsimile of the Manuscript in The Pierpont Morgan Library_ with a Transcript of the First Edition and John Leech's Illustrations [Illustration: _Mr. Fezziwig's Ball._] [Illustration: A CHRISTMAS CAROL BY CHARLES DICKENS] A CHRISTMAS CAROL THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT _by_ _Charles Dickens_ [Illustration] a facsimile of the manuscript in The Pierpont Morgan Library _with the illustrations of John Leech and the text from the first edition_. [Illustration: Mr. Fezziwig's Ball. _London ยท Chapman & Hall, 186 Strand._] [_This illustration is reproduced in full color on the inside front cover._] A CHRISTMAS CAROL NOTE TO READER All inconsistencies of spelling and punctuation in the First Edition have been retained by the Publishers. The portions of manuscript reproduced on pages 38, 42, 56, 58, 70, 92 and 136 appeared originally on the verso of the facing manuscript page. /Title/ A Christmas Carol In Prose Being a Ghost Story of Christmas By Charles Dickens ------------------------------- The Illustrations by John Leech ------------------------------- Chapman and Hall 186 Strand MDCCCXLIII /My own, and only, MS of the Book/ Charles Dickens [Illustration: Original manuscript of the Title Page.] PREFACE I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it. Their faithful Friend and Servant, C. D. December, 1843. [Illustration: Original manuscript of the Preface.] STAVE I. MARLEY'S GHOST. Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot--say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance--literally to astonish his son's weak mind. Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it [Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 1.] stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names: it was all the same to him. Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did. Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? when will you come to see me?" No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blindmen's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "no eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!" But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge. Once upon a time--of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve--old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the [Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 2.] people in the court outside go wheezing up |