Scrooge (1935) Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" Starring Seymour Hicks [Complete Film] Scrooge is a 1935 British fantasy film directed by Henry Edwards and starring Sir Seymour Hicks, Donald Calthrop and Robert Cochran. Hicks appears as Ebenezer Scrooge, the miser who hates Christmas. It was the first sound version of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, not counting a 1928 short subject that now appears to be lost. Hicks had previously played the role of Scrooge on the stage many times beginning in 1901, and again in a 1913 British silent film version. The 1935 film differs from all other versions of the story in one significant way - most of the ghosts, including that of Jacob Marley, are not actually shown onscreen, although their voices are heard.

Only the Ghost of Christmas Present (Oscar Asche) is actually seen in full figure - the Ghost of Christmas Past is a mere shape with no discernible facial features, Marley's Ghost is seen only briefly as a face on the door knocker, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is just an outstretched pointing finger. Why the film was made this way remains unclear; it is obviously not because British filmmakers could not achieve special effects, since we do see Marley's face superimposed on Scrooge's door knocker. Another aspect making this film different from other versions of the story is that Seymour Hicks plays both the old and young Scrooge, rather straining the credulity of the audience, since by this time, the sixty-four year old actor was visibly too aged to convincingly play a young man. The story is also severely truncated, even more than in the 1938 MGM film version, although the 1935 version is actually slightly longer. Much time is spent at the beginning of the film - before any of the ghosts appear - setting up the atmosphere of rich and poor London. Scrooge's sister Fan and Fezziwig are completely omitted from this version.

This is the first of only two sound versions in which Tiny Tim is actually seen lying dead. In the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come sequence Bob Cratchit grieves at Tim's bedside. The 1999 Patrick Stewart version also contains this scene. Maurice Evans appears briefly as a man harassed by Scrooge to pay his debts. Donald Calthrop portrays a Bob Cratchit who bears an uncanny physical resemblance to John Leech's illustrations of the character in the original 1843 edition of the novel. Two versions of this film exist; each has a differently designed opening credits sequence, and one of the two versions omits the very last scenes. Sir Seymour Hicks - Ebenezer Scrooge Donald Calthrop - Bob Cratchit Robert Cochran - Fred Mary Glynne - Belle Garry Marsh - Belle's husband Oscar Asche - Spirit of Christmas Present Marie Ney - Spirit of Christmas Past C.V. France - Spirit of Christmas Future Athene Seyler - Scrooge's charwoman Maurice Evans - Poor man Mary Lawson - Poor man's wife Barbara Everest - Mrs.

Cratchit Eve Gray - Fred's wife Morris Harvey - Poulterer with Prize Turkey Philip Frost - Tiny Tim D.J. Williams - Undertaker Margaret Yarde - Scrooge's laundress Hugh E. Wright - Old Joe Charles Carson - Middlemark Hubert Harben - Worthington A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens, first published by Chapman & Hall on 19 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation resulting from supernatural visits from Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim. The book was written and published in early Victorian era Britain, a period when there was both strong nostalgia for old Christmas traditions and an initiation of new practices such as Christmas trees and greeting cards. Dickens's sources for the tale appear to be many and varied but are principally the humiliating experiences of his childhood, his sympathy for the poor, and various Christmas stories and fairy tales. The tale has been viewed by critics as an indictment of 19th-century industrial capitalism.

It has been credited with restoring the holiday to one of merriment and festivity in Britain and America after a period of sobriety and somberness. A Christmas Carol remains popular, has never been out of print, and has been adapted to film, stage, opera, and other media multiple times. The film should not be confused with Scrooge, the 1951 film starring Alastair Sim. Category How Many Christmas Carol Movies Have There Been? Home / Holiday / How Many Christmas Carol Movies Have There Been? How Many Christmas Carol Movies Have There Been? Posted on by Deb in Holiday There have been 20 different films based on Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, if you consider the recent 3-D version, Disney’s A Christmas Carol, starring Jim Carrey. When I say there have been 20 Scrooge Stories on film, though, I’m talking about animated films for Children, silent movie shorts, modern adaptations and films loosely based on A Christmas Carol. If you want faithful, feature length live-action films that played on the big screen, there have been 7 such movies based on A Christmas Carol.

A Christmas Carol in Prose The original 1843 novella by Charles Dickens was titled A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. Ironically, it’s said that Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in a matter of weeks, because he needed money for the coming birth of his fifth child. A Christmas Carol is famously based on a character who loses the spirit of Christmas (or human goodwill in general) because of an immoral level of greed. When visited by three ghosts who show Ebenezer Scrooge visions of the past, present and future, Scrooge learns a valuable lesson and turns from the picture of the amoral businessman of the 19th century into a man of charity and goodwill. Since the publication of A Christmas Carol, the story has never been out of print and has been adapted both for 22 stage productions, 2 operas, 4 recordings, at least 10 radio broadcasts, 49 loosely based tv show adaptations and 20 film versions. Many of the Christmas Carol films have been animated versions of the Scrooge tale.

A Christmas Carol Animated Films Since it’s a Christmas story and it involves ghosts and children, it’s natural that less grim versions of A Christmas Carol have been turned into animated movies for children. For the past several generations, many peoples’ first encounter with A Christmas Carol has been through animated versions. A Christmas Carol – 1971 animated short by Richard Williams, later famous for directing Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Starred Alistair Sim, reprising his role from 1951. Mickey’s Christmas Carol – 1983 short film starring the most famous Walt Disney characters, with none other than Scrooge McDuck, naturally in the role of Scrooge. Disney’s first version of A Christmas Carol. A Christmas Carol – Lesser known straight-to-video animated version by Jetlag Productions, an American-Japanese studio. A Christmas Carol – 1997 – Animated film featuring the versatile Tim Curry as Scrooge and also starring Michael York, Whoopi Goldberg and voiceover master, Ed Asner. Christmas Carol: The Movie – Ambitious 2001 animated film by Illuminated Films, using voices of famous movie stars like Nicholas Cage, Kate Winslet and Simon Callow.

A Christmas Carol – This 2006 film uses computer animation and anthropomorphic animals to tell the story of Scrooge. Barbie in a Christmas Carol – 2008 film loosely based on A Christmas Carol, from the seemingly endless series of Barbie animated movies. A Christmas Carol Short Films Dickens’ Christmas tale was an early favorite of the movie producers and was adapted to film on four occasions before World War I even. Each of these silent films were film shorts for British audiences. Scrooge; Or Marley’s Ghost – 1901 A Christmas Carol – 1908 version which starred Thomas Ricketts as Scrooge. A Christmas Carol – A 15-minute short with Marc McDermott and Charles Ogle, respectively playing Ebenezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchit. Scrooge (Old Scrooge) – Sir Seymour Hicks starred in this 1913 film, which was released in the United States in 1926 under another name. A Christmas Carol Movies Finally, we have our list of feature-length adaptations of A Christmas Carol.

If you’re looking at these as the only faithful film versions of the movie, then I would say there have been 10 film versions. If you’re talking about true adaptations and not Muppet versions and modern versions based on A Christas Carol, then take out the 1988 and 1992 selections and say there have been 8 Christmas Carol feature films or feature length movies. There are likely others just as deserving as the television movie starring Patrick Stewart, though I’ve relegated most to the list of tv versions of A Christmas Carol, because they are either not very true to the original source material or weren’t full features. For instance, I left off 1997’s Ebenezer, starring Jack Palance and Ricky Schroeder in a Western version of Scrooge. I also left off the Hallmark Channel’s version, starring Tori Spelling as “Scroogette”. I think you get the picture. The Right To Be Happy – This 1916 silent movie was the first full length film version of A Christmas Carol, starring Rupert Julian in the Scrooge role.

A Christmas Carol – Another silent movie version from the United Kingdom, this 1923 film stars Russell Thorndike, Jack Denton, Forbes Dawson and Nina Vanna. Scrooge – Seymour Hicks reprises his role as Scrooge in this 1935 release. A Christmas Carol – 1938 version with Reginald Owen, Gene Lockhart and Kathleen Lockhart. Scrooge – This 1951 release, starring Alastair Sim as Scrooge, along with Mervyn Johns and Hermione Baddeley. Considered by many to be the best version of A Christmas Carol on film. Scrooge – 1970 musical starring Albert Finney and Alec Guiness as Scrooge and Marley’s Ghost, respectively. This is the film many of us grew up watching. Scrooged – Modern adaptation from 1988 starring Bill Murray as a tv producer who doesn’t understand the spirit of Christmas. The Muppet Christmas Carol – A 1992 film that was targeted for children, using the famous puppets created by Jim Henson.

A Christmas Carol – 1999 feature length tv film starring Patrick Stewart as Ebenezer Scrooge. If you want to consider only feature films that played at the cinema, leave this one off the list. It’s a faithful adapation, though. Disney’s A Christmas Carol – 2009 “performance capture” film, with Jim Carrey starring as Scrooge, the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Future. Released on November 4, 2009. (U.S.) Scrooge (1970) - IMDb IMDb 17 January 2017 4:34 PM, UTC NEWS There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error A musical retelling of Charles Dickens ' classic novel about an old bitter miser taken on a journey of self-redemption, courtesy of several mysterious Christmas apparitions.

Director: Charles Dickens (based on "A Christmas Carol" by), Leslie Bricusse (screenplay) Stars: a list of 39 titles created 22 Dec 2011 a list of 32 titles created 22 Dec 2011 a list of 26 titles created 29 Jul 2012 a list of 35 titles created 11 months ago a list of 40 titles created 4 months ago Search for " Scrooge " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. Nominated for 4 Oscars. Another 1 win & 6 nominations. See more awards » Photos Edit Storyline In 1860, cranky old miser Ebenezer Scrooge hates Christmas; loathes people and defends the decrease of the surplus of poor population; runs his bank exploiting his employee Bob Cratchit and clients, giving a bitter treatment to his own nephew and acquaintances.

However, on Christmas Eve, he is visited by the doomed ghost of his former partner Jacob Marley that tells him that three spirits would visit him that night. The first one, the spirit of Christmas Past, recalls his miserable youth when he lost his only love due to his greed; the spirit of Christmas Present shows him the poor situation of Bob's family and how joyful life may be; and the spirit of Christmas Future shows his fate. Scrooge finds that life is good and time is too short and suddenly you are not there anymore, changing his behavior toward Christmas, Bob, his nephew and people in general. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil What the DICKENS have they done to Scrooge? See more » Genres: 19 December 1970 (Japan) See more » Also Known As: 70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints)| Mono (35 mm prints) Color: Did You Know? Trivia Scrooge tells the Ghost of Christmas Past that it is 1860, but the book that the movie is based on was actually set in the year 1843.

See more » Goofs While with the Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge peeks into a home, wiping the frost and condensation off the window. Setting aside the question of whether an incorporeal spirit could do this, frost and condensation collect on the warm side of a window, not on the cold side, where Scrooge is. See more » Quotes Ghost of Christmas Present : How many of my brothers have you rejected in your miserable lifetime! Ebenezer Scrooge : I have never met any of your brothers, sir! The phrase "Merry Christmas" appears at the end of the movie. See more » Connections Delightful Version Of A Familiar Tale 16 December 2000 | by jhclues (Salem, Oregon) – See all my reviews In this delightful musical adaptation of The Charles Dickens' classic, Albert Finney is cast as Ebenezer in `Scrooge,' directed by Ronald Neame, who successfully manages to put a fresh face on the familiar tale.

Original music and songs (by Leslie Bricusse), from the jaunty to the poignant, add to this uplifting and appealing version, skillfully crafted and delivered by Neame, and beautifully acted by one and all. At 7:00 on Christmas Eve, Scrooge finally tears himself away from his counting house and makes his way home, commenting along the way (in song) that `I Hate People,' only to be greeted at his front door by the apparition of his late partner, Jacob Marley (Alec Guinness). And of course for Scrooge, it's only the beginning of a night that will change his life forever. First, the visit from Marley's ghost, followed, in succession, by the spirits of Christmas Past (Edith Evans), Christmas Present (Kenneth Moore) and Christmas Yet To Come (Paddy Stone). Though not, perhaps, the definitive portrayal of Scrooge, Finney is outstanding and does lend some distinction to the character of the curmudgeonly miser, from the stoop-shouldered walk he affects to his twisted mouth.

But, more importantly, he gets beyond the mere physical aspects to capture the personality and singular perspectives of the man as well, and in doing so makes his Scrooge unique; no small accomplishment considering how many times on stage and screen this character has been done, and by how many different actors. Also turning in notable performances are Edith Evans, who makes her spirit of the past warm and accessibly intimate, and Kenneth Moore, whose spirit of the present is as big and engaging as the life he represents. But the real highlight of the film is the portrayal of Marley's ghost by Alec Guinness. What a magnificent actor, and what a magnificent performance! When Marley first enters Scrooge's room he fairly glides, disjointedly across the room, encumbered by the chains he forged in life and which he now must carry around for eternity. There is a fluid rhythm to his every movement, to every step he takes, that lends a sense of the ethereal to him, without-- it must be noted-- the help of any special effects whatsoever. With nuance and precision, with care given to every minute detail, Guinness truly makes him an otherworldly presence.

There has never before been, nor will there ever be in the future, an interpretation of Marley any better than this. It IS the definitive portrayal, and a tribute to talents and abilities of one of the great actors of all time. In addition to the music and songs, there are a couple of scenes that consign this presentation of `A Christmas Carol' the stamp of uniqueness. The first involves the visit from Marley's ghost, wherein Scrooge is taken in flight by Marley, and once aloft they encounter lost souls and phantoms, doomed to wander aimlessly for all eternity. The second is courtesy of the Ghost of the Future, who gives Scrooge a glimpse of the nether world, where he is greeted by Marley, who shows him to the `office' he will occupy for eternity, as well as the massive chain Scrooge has forged for himself during his lifetime. The supporting cast includes Anton Rodgers (Tom Jenkins), who delivers one of the most memorable songs, `Thank you very much;' Mary Peach (Fred's wife), Kay Walsh (Mrs. Fezziwig), Laurence Naismith (Mr. Fezziwig), David Collings (Bob Cratchit), Frances Cuka (Mrs.

Cratchit), Richard Beaumont (Tiny Tim) and Suzanne Neve (Isabel). Heartwarming and thoroughly entertaining, `Scrooge' is a welcome addition to the annual holiday festivities. It's always fun to see a new spin on a familiar story, especially when it's as well crafted as this; moreover, this one will leave you whistling a tune and humming for the rest of the day, maybe even for the rest of the year. And that's a deal that's just too hard to pass up. I rate this one 9/10. 35 of 41 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes Scrooge in A Christmas Carol :: Charles Dickens Scrooge in A Christmas Carol Length: 1079 words (3.1 double-spaced pages) Rating: Excellent Open Document A Christmas Carol Essay Many times in life, we do not realize the importance of something until it is gone and is too late to reclaim. However, in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, we are told the story of a man who, although undeserving, is offered an opportunity to redeem himself, to receive a second chance.

This man, Ebenezer Scrooge, is changed forever by the valuable lessons taught by four spirits: those of his deceased partner Jacob Marley, and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come. Scrooge is first visited by the phantom of his departed companion, and sole friend, Jacob Marley. Appearing on the knocker to his old chambers, Marley's horrifying face is the first sign of the remarkable, life-changing night yet to come. However, it is only until Ebenezer Scrooge actually sees "Marley, in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head" (p.17) that the old man truly believes that he was not merely seeing a reverie. The specter proceeded to warn Scrooge to change his callous, avarice ways, or to be as Marley after death: dwelling on regret and self-torment, weighed down by "the chain [he] forged in life" (p.21).

Knowing Ebenezer as a man of sensible nature, the ghost offers further proof that there are forever consequences, even after life. Shocked, Scrooge glimpses "the air filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste," (p.25) and recognizes many as long forgotten business associates: as greedy and heartless as he. Although Jacob Marley appeared for only a brief moment, he was the most significant and influential spirit: for it was he who imparted the moral that all faults in life are paid for ten-fold in death, and who, more importantly, prepared the pragmatic man for the supernatural appearances that would follow. The second to appear is the Spirit of Christmas Past, bringing with it a flood of poignant, haunting memories. Each evokes a new feeling, repressed anguish or forgotten happiness, felt by Scrooge during a Christmas long-ago. The first was the reminiscence of "a solitary child, neglected by his friends" (p.34). However dismal this scene may appear, the boy was in high spirits, washing away his solitude in a story.

How to Cite this Page MLA Citation: Sort By: Scrooge is shown that one may find joy in simple things, such as a book. At the same school many years later, the old man sees "a girl, much younger than the boy, [come] darting in" (p.37). His sister is a reminder that he had once been loved, but more importantly, that he himself had cared deeply for something other than money. The scene then switches to his first, truly happy Christmas, during his apprentice to Fezziwig. From this man, Scrooge learns one of life's most valuable lessons: a kind act coming from the heart, rather than from money, is what earns greater respect and appreciation. Recalling how "the happiness he [gave was] quite as great as if it cost a fortune" (p.44), Ebenezer is faced with the remorse of his unkindness to those below him, such as his clerk. However, by this time the landscape has changed once more, into a grey, heartbreaking memory.

The old man is confronted by Belle, his fiancée, as she explains why she must give up the battle for his love, as money is much too powerful a competitor. She appears then, years later, surrounded by a loving family that should have been his, and a husband with the life he could have had. The Ghost of Christmas Past, and all that it shows to Scrooge, is heart wrenching for a man whose early life seeps with dire mistakes and terrible regrets. The next phantom to appear is that of Christmas Present, awash in splendid glory, bright colours and a glorious feast of "turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch" (p.53). The Christmas celebrations about to be revealed, however, are of none of the same elegance and abundance. The first house the Ghost and Scrooge visit is that of Bob Cratchit, Scrooge's clerk.

His wonder turns into shock as his eyes open to the other side of the world, a side he had been shunning for as long as he could. Tiny Tim is a symbol of all the poor, hopeless children the world ignores, having nothing, yet finding reason to be cheerful. Scrooge is in awe that, with so little, the Cratchits are able to make so much of the Holiday. He is in even greater wonder when they toast to him since he has treated them with low respect. Next, Ebenezer sees the Christmas party at his nephew's house: although they are without means, they enjoy themselves so thoroughly, that the old man himself "[begs] like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed," (p.78). Finally, before the ghost departs, he reveals man's two faults: ignorance and want, both of which, previously, Scrooge had in abundance. The Spirit of Christmas past is vital to Ebenezer's dramatic change, as he unearths the truth that one does not need to be rich to live a successful, happy life, and uncovers his eyes to a world the he has struggled to hide from.

The last to appear is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, and is much different then its predecessors. This spirit, unlike the more approachable and welcoming Christmas Past and Present, petrifies Scrooge. Because "the air through which this Spirit moved seemed to scatter gloom and mystery" (p.83), this final specter has the most lasting impression on the old man. It shows him images of his own death, and the unaltered, blank expressions on the faces of those receiving news of his passing. The realization that he has none to blame but himself for others' lack of caring finally dawns upon Ebenezer, and he vows, in that moment, to transform all the sorrow he had caused into happiness, and all the bad he had done into good. Was Dickens’s Christmas Carol borrowed from Lowell’s mill girls? - The Boston Globe Already a subscriber? Members Sign In Was Dickens’s Christmas Carol borrowed from Lowell’s mill girls? A new discovery by literary scholars highlights an unexpected inspiration A young Dickens, in a portrait made during his 1842 Boston visit.

By Kevin Hartnett December 15, 2013 The industrial city of Lowell might seem a world apart from the fireside British scenes we associate with Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” In the 19th century, in vast new brick buildings along the Merrimack River, young women factory laborers toiled 12 hours a day spinning cotton into fabric, and went home to boarding houses in America’s first company town. But what those women did in their spare time may very well have shaped one of the great works of holiday literature. Advertisement Dickens visited Lowell in 1842, touring the mills and taking notes for a travelogue he planned to write on American institutions. The next year, he published “A Christmas Carol.” The story was an immediate hit, selling out in a week, inspiring theater versions within months, and shaping how we think of Christmas to this day. Now, new research is suggesting that the book may have borrowed—quite liberally—from the amateur writings of the millworkers he visited.

After reading an obscure literary journal published by Lowell textile workers and comparing it to Dickens’s novella, a Boston University professor and student are arguing that some of the most memorable elements of Dickens’s story—the ghosts, the tour through the past, Scrooge’s sudden reconsideration of his life—closely resemble plot points in stories by the city’s “mill girls” that Dickens read after his visit. Get This Week in Opinion in your inbox: Globe Opinion's must-reads, delivered to you every Sunday. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here The research was conducted by Natalie McKnight, professor of English and a dean at Boston University, and Chelsea Bray, an undergraduate at the time of the project who is now in graduate school at Boston College. Their argument—not yet their actual paper—has circulated only online so far, prompting some preliminary objections; they plan to publish it in an upcoming book about Dickens in Massachusetts. Once their paper is published, they’ll begin the work of defending their theory to a potentially skeptical scholarly community. McKnight and Bray’s discovery appears to offer some surprising insights into a deeply familiar work.

It expands the inspiration for one of the great holiday stories radically across continents, and introduces a completely unrecognized set of voices into the range of influences on Dickens. The Lowell influence also adds a layer of complexity to a holiday fable, recasting it as not just a sentimental Victorian story of redemption and generosity, but also a wider-ranging social critique. In the new industrial city of Lowell, the young Dickens found a rebuke to Britain’s labor practices: Its mills and houses showed just how far behind Britain had fallen in its humanity toward workers, and the imaginative tales being produced by its workers may have become the framework for him to make just that argument. In this light, what we think of as a traditional Christmas story starts to look like something else: a globally informed complaint about fairness in a changing world. National Park Service The literary magazine from the mills. *** Advertisement Charles Dickens was already a celebrity when he arrived by steamship in Boston Harbor on Jan. 22, 1842.

Just 29 years old, he had already earned international fame for novels including “The Pickwick Papers,” “Oliver Twist,” and “Nicholas Nickleby.” Dickens had come to America to acquaint himself with the young country’s institutions, in the hope of writing a travelogue or perhaps finding material for a future novel. As he recalled in his subsequent account of his tour, “American Notes,” during his first days in Boston, Dickens visited a number of Boston-area institutions, including the Perkins School for the Blind and a school in Boylston for neglected boys. Afterward he wrote glowingly, “I sincerely believe that the public institutions and charities of this capital of Massachusetts are as nearly perfect as the most considerate wisdom, benevolence, and humanity, can make them.” Filled with good feeling for America, on Feb. 3, 1842, Dickens took the train from Boston to Lowell, through what he described as “Mile after mile of stunted trees.” He was interested in visiting the city’s textile mills to compare them to the mill he’d worked in as a boy and the squalid working conditions of laborers back home in England. Right away he was struck by how different Lowell was.

In “American Notes” he is nearly rhapsodic about how fresh the city appeared. Lowell had been incorporated 16 years earlier, but to Dickens it felt as if it had grown up in a day. He marveled at the new construction and the cleanliness of the working conditions. But it was the mill girls who really caught his attention. He visited his first mill right after dinner, as the women were returning from their boarding houses to work. Dickens described them “thronged” along a staircase and gives the impression of having to brush past them as he ascended. He remarked on how well dressed they were, and their general appearance of health. “Dickens was kind of a ladies’ man,” Bray says. “So I see him being very drawn to their intellectual nature, and so I think in turn they were probably very receptive to him.” The brief encounter on the staircase might have been unremarkable but for what came next. Dickens returned to Boston that evening and brought back issues of The Lowell Offering, a monthly literary journal written by the same mill girls who’d made such an impression on him earlier that day.

Later he described the journal as “four hundred good solid pages, which I have read from beginning to end.” That the journal had been written by female factory workers was a revelation to Dickens, who saw industrial life in England as degrading. “Within the mills he saw these women who not only retained their sense of agency, but who were also these intellectual beings producing this very creative endeavor,” says Bray. Lowell Historical Society Millworkers on the job in Lowell. *** It would be easy to dismiss Dickens’s praise of The Lowell Offering as the condescension of an already famous young author, except for two things. The writing is in fact good, says McKnight, and a close look at its contents suggests that Dickens’s appreciation may have gone beyond mere praise. McKnight, a specialist in Dickens and Victorian literature, has been interested in Dickens’s trip to Lowell for some time. In 2012, while reading The Lowell Offering for a separate project, she noticed similarities between its essays and “A Christmas Carol,” which Dickens published 18 months after he returned from the United States.

She asked Bray, who at the time was a senior English major at Boston University, to read through the same 400 pages Dickens had read, to see how deep the correspondence ran. The Lowell Offering was a notably sentimental publication, in a way typical of its time. Many of its essays spoke to timeless ideas that also touched Dickens: about money not buying happiness, virtue being found in humble places, and the sustaining power of memory. Some pieces also addressed Christmas, invoking the power of the holiday as a time for personal transformation. But as Bray, and later McKnight, read the stories closely, they started to encounter some particularly familiar-sounding details. “A Christmas Carol,” of course, is rife with ghosts: the ghost of Scrooge’s deceased partner, Marley, and the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future. Together these four phantoms help Scrooge see the wayward path he’s traveled, and prompt him to wake up reborn as a better man on Christmas Day.

Dickens had encountered that narrative trope in the stories written by the Lowell mill girls, who typically published either anonymously or under pseudonyms like “Dorothea” or “M.” In one anonymous story called “A Visit from Hope,” the narrator is “seated by the expiring embers of a wood fire” at midnight, when a ghost, an old man with “thin white locks,” appears before him. The ghost takes the narrator back to scenes from his youth, and afterward the narrator promises to “endeavor to profit by the advice he gave me.” Similarly, in “A Christmas Carol,” Scrooge is sitting beside “a very low fire indeed” when Marley’s ghost appears before him. And, later, after Scrooge has been visited by the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future, he promises, “The spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.” The ghost-as-instructive-tour-guide motif appears in other pieces from The Lowell Offering as well.

And while McKnight says that ghostly guides certainly have a history in literature—Dante’s guide through the Divine Comedy is the ghost of Virgil—the stories in The Lowell Offering represent the closest known precedent for the specific scenes and language in Dickens’s work. In “Happiness,” published anonymously in May 1841, the narrator has a dream-vision in which she travels the world and observes that happiness only flourishes in humble places, like a small country cottage. The setup is echoed in “A Christmas Carol” when the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to a miners’ hut, a lighthouse, and the Cratchit home, to show him that you don’t need money to have a merry Christmas. The real emotional power of “A Christmas Carol,” and the reason we return to it year after year, is its message of redemption: in a single night, Scrooge turns his life around. Here, too, The Lowell Offering offered a precedent. In the essay “Memory and Hope,” written by a mill girl using the pen name Ellen, the narrator is visited by two spirits who offer competing visions of how she could live her life.

After they’ve gone, the narrator promises to “never again covet the garland of fame,” but instead to “make myself more useful to my fellow creatures.” Scrooge makes a similarly triumphal statement at the end of “A Christmas Carol,” when he vows to become “as good a friend, as good a master, as good a man, as the old city knew.” Despite the correspondences, not everyone agrees it’s an airtight case. A recent article about the claim on the Boston University website triggered a conversation on Dickns-L, an internet discussion board popular with Dickens scholars. One commenter posted that the inspiration for “A Christmas Carol” was simply the universally known story of Lazarus, the biblical figure raised from the dead. Another wrote that the seeds of “A Christmas Carol” could be found closer by, in a brief story inserted into “The Pickwick Papers,” which Dickens had written six years before he visited Lowell, and which the mill girls may well have read. That piece, a wry folktale called “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton,” featured a gravedigger pulled down into the underworld on Christmas Eve by goblins.

McKnight agrees that story played into “A Christmas Carol,” but says The Lowell Offering much more closely anticipates its tone, structure, and theme. “There’s a way in which [the Lowell women] pulled together the supernatural elements, the Christmas setting, the sentiment, that theme of going back in time, and memory traveling through time—all of that’s there in The Lowell Offering,” says McKnight. “I think having all of that in one place was the catalyst for things coming together so perfectly in ‘A Christmas Carol.’” Diana Archibald, a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, is the co-editor of a forthcoming volume on Dickens in Massachusetts that will include a chapter by McKnight and Bray. She thinks the evidence that Lowell millworkers influenced Dickens is strong, and sees a degree of knee-jerk classism in challenges to it. “It’s girls, right, let’s face it, it’s girls writing The Lowell Offering, and they influenced the great master, Charles Dickens? Of course there’s resistance to that,” she says. *** The warm feelings toward America that Lowell engendered in Charles Dickens didn’t last long.

He went on to New York City, Niagara Falls, Washington, D.C., and the Mississippi River, and grew more disillusioned with each stop. He objected to American manners: People spit tobacco in public and mobbed him on the streets, literally plucking souvenir fur from his bearskin coat. He was horrified by slavery. When “American Notes” was published in October 1842, it landed with a thud in the United States and angered many of Dickens’s American acquaintances, who felt he’d enjoyed their hospitality only to skewer their country when he got back home. One of the few positive reviews appeared in The Lowell Offering. “There is no individual from whom we should be more willing to receive rebuke than from him,” wrote millworker Harriet Jane Farley in January 1843. Farley also downplayed Dickens’s praise for the Lowell women in his book: While she and the girls were “proud of his approval,” she wrote, they feared that they “are not worthy of such flattering compliments.” The Lowell women may have in fact earned more of Dickens’s esteem than they realized. Should he have offered them more credit?

Looked at one way, the similarities between The Lowell Offering and “A Christmas Carol” suggest an uncomfortable picture of a privileged, world-renowned author appropriating the writing of poor, anonymous mill girls for his own fame and fortune. That’s not how the scholars see it. Literary borrowing, even quite detailed borrowing, was accepted practice at the time—“It was just a different way of looking at things back then,” says Archibald. (“American Notes,” for instance, includes many pages of writing by the famed 19th-century physician Samuel Gridley Howe, all without attribution, and apparently without any thought by Dickens that he was doing something improper.) McKnight, Bray, and Archibald believe that it may even say something positive about Dickens that he was so open to The Lowell Offering in the first place. “To me, it’s really exciting that the greatest novelist in the 19th century in the English language drew a lot of inspiration from what a bunch of women factory workers wrote,” says McKnight.

“I think it pays tribute to his kind of egalitarian impulses that he would be open to their work and take it seriously.” Regardless of whether the scholarly community accepts McKnight and Bray’s claim, the mill girls themselves, so central to the story, are likely to remain hidden in history. Some Christmas stories we hear at this time of year have a particularly heart-rending theme—the idea of someone who’s poor trying to find a way to give a gift to someone who’s rich. You can imagine, then, the tale of what Dickens drew from Lowell’s hard-working writers as its own kind of Christmas story: the admiring mill girls, and the unlikely creative gift they gave to a great writer who may have never even realized he received it. Kevin Hartnett is a writer in South Carolina. He can be reached at kshartnett18@gmail.com . Loading comments...

Question: In Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, how many different ghosts visited Scrooge?
Answer: 4