The City by The Bay Celebrates Dickens At Christmas

      It is likely that A Christmas Carol stands as Charles Dicken's best-known story, with frequent new adaptations. It is also the most-filmed of his stories, with many versions dating from the early years of cinema. According to the historian Ronald Hutton, the current state of the observance of Christmas is largely the result of a mid-Victorian revival of the holiday spearheaded by A Christmas Carol. Dickens catalyzed the emerging Christmas as a family centred festival of generosity. Its archetypal figures (Scrooge, Tiny Tim, the Christmas ghosts) entered into Western cultural consciousness. A prominent phrase from the tale, 'Merry Christmas', was popularized following the appearance of the story. The term Scrooge became a synonym for miser, and his dismissive put-down exclamation 'Bah! Humbug!' likewise gained currency as an idiom. Novelist William Makepeace Thackeray called the book "a national benefit, and to every man and woman who reads it a personal kindness".

 

Visit the official web pages belonging to the annual Dickens Fair.