
Illustration of Scrooge and Marley’s Ghost by John Leech. First Edition of A Christmas Carol, 1843.
Illustration of Scrooge and Marley’s Ghost by John Leech. First Edition of A Christmas Carol, 1843.
First Edition Title Page of A Christmas Carol. Illustrations by John Leech, 1843.
Cover of the first edition of A Christmas Carol, 1843.
The literary Gods certainly favoured the 7th of February, at least during the 19th century. Charles Dickens, Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Sinclair Lewis were born on that day. Impressive, right?
Charles Dickens and His Characters by William Holbrook Beard. Birth year: 1812.
“A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”
Laura Ingalls Wilder. Birth year: 1867.
“The real things haven’t changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.”
Sinclair Lewis, 1914. Birth year: 1885.
“Every man is a king so long as he has someone to look down on.”
CHARLES DICKENS
Charles Dickens
REASON: Is it possible to get through winter without pulling out a volume of Dickens? What a desperate, weary, chilly world his characters inhabit! It is enough to make the pages freeze mid-turn.
“Bleak, dark, and piercing cold, it was a night for the well-housed and fed to draw round the bright fire, and thank God they were at home; and for the homeless starving wretch to lay him down and die. Many hunger-worn outcasts close their eyes in our bare streets at such times, who, let their crimes have been what they may, can hardly open them in a more bitter world.”-Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
If you missed My Top Six Cold Weather Writers, go here.
For Honorable Mention: Christina Rossetti, go here.
Thanks to Tom Gething for reminding me that Charles Dickens deserves a place on my list!
“And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!”-Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
“She reads Dickens in the spirit in which she would have eloped with him.”-Eudora Welty