A Christmas Carol

“This volume is a distinguished addition to a superb series. Richard Kelly’s fine edition of Dickens’s ‘timeless classic’ richly documents just how very timely this little book was, being the inspired and inspiring result of Dickens’s passionately humanitarian response to the harshness and brutality with which the poor, especially children of the poor, were treated in the England of 1843. In his substantial introduction, supplemented by a well-chosen selection of contemporary writings, Professor Kelly also demonstrates another notable aspect of the work’s timeliness by situating it in the context of the great revival of traditional Christmas festivities going on during the first half of the nineteenth century.” — Michael Slater, Birkbeck College, University of London