Synopses & Reviews
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 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 'oclock, 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 people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement-stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already: it had not been light all day: and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.
The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.
Synopsis
A gorgeous hardcover edition of the timeless holiday classic, featuring stunning full-color illustrations by Arthur Rackham, with a gilt-stamped cloth cover, acid-free paper, sewn bindings, and a silk ribbon marker. No holiday season is complete without Charles Dickens's dramatic and heartwarming story of the transformation of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge through the efforts of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Set on a cold Christmas Eve in Victorian London, and featuring Scrooge's long-suffering and mild-mannered clerk, Bob Cratchit; Bob's kindhearted son, Tiny Tim; and a host of colorful characters, A Christmas Carol was an instant hit and has been beloved ever since by generations of readers of all ages.
Synopsis
"Bah Humbug!" That's how Ebeneezer Scrooge feels about Christmas--until the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future decide to show the crotchety old miser the error of his ways. Together they travel through time, revisiting all the people who have played an important role in Scrooge's life. And as their journey concludes, Scrooge is reminded of what it means to have love in his heart, and what the true spirit of Christmas is all about. A timeless story the whole family will enjoy!
Synopsis
This collection of beautiful, enduring hardcover editions features timeless tales the entire family is sure to enjoy, all from Everyman’s Library Children’s Classics. With colorful cloth sewn bindings, charming full-color illustrations, elegant gold stamped covers, and silk ribbon markers, these are books that children and adults will cherish for years.
Titles included:
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Synopsis
From
A Christmas Carol and
Peter Pan to
Little Women and
The Three Musketeers, the best of childrens fiction and poetry in enduring hardcover editions with colorful cloth sewn bindings and charming illustrations—many in full color.
This set includes one each of the following titles:
A Apple Pie and Traditional Nursery Rhymes Illustrated by Kate Greenaway
The Adventures of Robin Hood by Roger Lancelyn Green
Aladdin and Other Tales from the Arabian Nights Illustrated by W. Heath Robinson
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
The BFG by Roald Dahl
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
A Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear
A Childs Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster
Don Quixote of the Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes
English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs
The Everyman Anthology of Poetry for Children
Everyman Book of Nonsense Verse
Fables by Aeseop
Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen
Fairy Tales by The Brothers Grimm
Jack the Giant Killer by Richard Doyle
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green
The Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter
Little Red Riding Hood and Other Stories by Charles Perrault
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Mother Gooses Nursery Rhymes
Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning
The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
Ride a Cock-horse and Other Rhymes and Stories Illustrated by Randolph Caldecott
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Russian Fairy Tales by Gillian Avery
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
The Secret Garden by Frances H. Burnett
Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Sleeping Beauty by C. S. Evans
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Everymans Library continues to maintain its original commitment to publishing the most significant world literature in editions that reflect a tradition of fine bookmaking. Everymans Library pursues the highest standards, utilizing modern prepress, printing, and binding technologies to produce classically designed books printed on acid-free natural-cream-colored text paper and including Smyth-sewn, signatures, full-cloth cases with two-color case stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, and European-style half-round spines.
Synopsis
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