Charles Dickens e o Natal

Illustrated London News, Christmas 1886:

covers: Cock Robin, unsigned; "Christmas has come again !, drawn by Florence Gravie",

signed R. Taylor

The Merry The’s Christmas Collection

Quando se fala em Natal há sempre um escritor que nos ocorre de imediato ao pensamento – Charles Dickens.

Retrato de Charles Dickens enquanto jovem

Oleo sobre tela de Daniel Maclise (1839)

National Portrait Gallery, Londres

Com efeito ele publicou vários livros e outras pequenas histórias onde o tema é o Natal. Dos contos editados em livro temos:

A Christmas Carol (1843)

A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens, first published by Chapman & Hall on 19 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation resulting from supernatural visits from Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim.

The book was written and published in early Victorian Era Britain, a period when there was both strong nostalgia for old Christmas traditions and an initiation of new practices such as Christmas trees and greeting cards. Dickens's sources for the tale appear to be many and varied but are principally the humiliating experiences of his childhood, his sympathy for the poor, and various Christmas stories and fairy tales.

"He had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church."

DICKENS, Charles – A Christmas Carol HRISTMAS CAROL.

New York: The Baker & Taylor Company, 1905.

Illustrated by George Alfred Williams.

The tale has been viewed by critics as an indictment of 19th-century industrial capitalism. It has been credited with restoring the holiday to one of merriment and festivity in Britain and America after a period of sobriety and sombreness.

The Chimes (1844)

The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, a short novel by Charles Dickens, was written and published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol and one year before The Cricket on the Hearth. It is the second in his series of "Christmas books": five short books with strong social and moral messages that he published during the 1840s.

"The Chimes, A Goblin Story" by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Charles Green, R.I

The Merry The’s Christmas Collection

The chimes are old bells in the church on whose steps Trotty Veck plies his trade. The book is divided into four parts named "quarters", after the quarter chimes of a striking clock. (This parallels Dickens naming the parts of A Christmas Carol "staves" – that is "stanzas" – and dividing The Cricket on the Hearth into "chirps".)

The Cricket on the Hearth (1845)

The Cricket on the Hearth. A Fairy Tale of Home is a novella by Charles Dickens, published by Bradbury and Evans, and released 20 December 1845 with illustrations by Daniel Maclise, John Leech, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield and Edwin Henry Landseer. Dickens began writing the book around 17 October 1845 and finished it by 1 December. Like all of Dickens' Christmas books, it was published in book form, not as a serial. Dickens described the novel as "quiet and domestic [...] innocent and pretty." It is subdivided into chapters called "Chirps", similar to the "Quarters" of The Chimes or the "Staves" of A Christmas Carol. It is the third of Dickens's five Christmas books, the others being A Christmas Carol (1843), The Chimes (1844), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (1848)

The Battle of Life (1846)

The Battle of Life: A Love Story is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in 1846. It is the fourth of his five "Christmas Books", coming after The Cricket on the Hearth and followed by The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain.

The setting is an English village that stands on the site of a historic battle. Some characters refer to the battle as a metaphor for the struggles of life, hence the title.

Battle is the only one of the five Christmas Books that has no supernatural or explicitly religious elements. (One scene takes place at Christmas time, but it is not the final scene.) The story bears some resemblance to The Cricket on the Hearth in two aspects: it has a non-urban setting and it is resolved with a romantic twist. It is even less of a social novel than is Cricket. As is typical with Dickens, the ending is a happy one.

It is one of Dickens' lesser-known works and has never attained any high level of popularity, a trait it shares among the Christmas Books with The Haunted Man.

The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (1848)

The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-Time (better known as The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain or simply as The Haunted Man) is a novella by Charles Dickens first published in 1848. It is the fifth and last of Dickens' Christmas novellas. The story is more about the spirit of the holidays than about the holidays themselves, harking back to the first of the series, A Christmas Carol. The tale centers around a Professor Redlaw and those close to him.

Advertisement for Dickens's Household Words

Publicou ainda no Household Words magazine os seguintes contos:

Front cover of Vol. II,

of Dickens's Household Words

September 28, 1850- March 22, 1851

What Christmas Is, as We Grow Older (1851)

A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire (1852)

Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire (1853)

The Seven Poor Travellers (1854)

Illustration for "The Tale of Richard Doubledick" by Fred Barnard (1870s)

"The Tale of Richard Doubledick" from "The Seven Poor Travellers"

originally appeared in Household Words (1854).

The Holly-Tree Inn (1855)

The Wreck of the "Golden Mary" (1856)

The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857)

A House to Let (1858)

A House to Let is a short story by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Anne Procter. It was originally published in 1858 in the Christmas edition of Dickens' Household Words magazine. Each of the contributors wrote a chapter and the story was edited by Dickens.

A House to Let was the first collaboration between the four writers, although Collins and Dickens had worked with Procter on previous Christmas stories for the magazine in 1854, 1855, and 1856. The four authors would write together again in 1859's "The Haunted House" which appeared in the extra Christmas number of All the Year Round, the successor to Household Words which Dickens had started after a dispute with his publishers.

Para o All the Year Round magazine escreveria ainda estes outros contos:

Advertisement for Dickens's All the Year Round

All the Year Round, Series 1, Volume 1

(30 April 1859(1859-04-30)–22 October 1859(1859-10-22)

The Haunted House (1859)

A Message from the Sea (1860)

Tom Tiddler's Ground (1861)

Somebody's Luggage (1862)

Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings (1863)

Cover of the Christmas issue for Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings

Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy (1864)

Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions (1865)

Mugby Junction (1866)

No Thoroughfare (1867)

In 1867 Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins collaborated to produce a stage play titled No Thoroughfare: A Drama: In Five Acts. This was the last stage production to be associated with Dickens, who died in June 1870. The play opened at the Adelphi Theatre on 26 December 1867.

Cover of the Christmas issue for No Thoroughfare by Dickens & Collins 1st ed

The novel No Thoroughfare was also first published in 1867, in the Christmas number of Dickens' periodical All The Year Round. There are thematic parallels with other books from Dickens' mature writings, including Little Dorrit (1857) and especially Our Mutual Friend (1865).

 

Charles Dickens

E após este apontamento natalício resta-me apenas expressar os meus votos de Boas Festas e de um Feliz Natal para todos vós.

Saudações natalícias

Fontes consultadas:

Charles Dickens (Wikipedia)
The Merry The’s Christmas Collection