Review: A Great Story Enhanced
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 21, 2013
I've read several derivatives (one with Jane Austen characters and voice, another the original Christmas story with the innkeeper as Scrooge) this year, so I decided it might be time to re-read the original. This was an interesting edition to read because it included a bio of Dickens and the context of the book in the time period. It also included reviews throughout history since the story was first written. Amazing the differences in reviewers' reactions--ranging from a reviewer from Dickens' own time who predicted the story would still be read a hundred years later to a modern reviewer who can't understand why anyone would ever read such a sappy, sentimental story. Some saw Scrooge's transformation as a religious redemption; others saw nothing of the birth of Jesus in the story.