Reviews for A midnight carol

The average rating for A midnight carol based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-12-21 00:00:00 Jennifer Mcdaniel I really liked this book. I must admit I am a Charles Dickens fan. I am also a Christmas Carol fan, so to read this seemed like I was going to like it no matter what. I really like retellings or sequels to classical pieces, too. With that said, this tale of the story behind the writing and publishing of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol was quite entertaining. I liked that there were enough factual elements from Dickens life that I found the author and story creditable. Since I have taught high school English for years, I know quite a bit about his life and many of those details were included. The story picks up with Dickens awaiting the birth of his 5th child, while struggling to write a money maker. His past works had done well but he seems to have fallen out of favor. Once the idea of The Christmas Carol is hatched and written, he attempts to publish it in a way that will offer him the opportunity to make more profit. Naturally there is some underhandedness by his publishers and it creates quite a suspenseful air to the book that I did not expect, but it is what made me sad that Christmas came and I had to put it aside. It is also what got me out of bed at 4:45 am this morning to finish it. If you like Dickens and or The Christmas Carol, I highly recommend.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-02-28 00:00:00 George Trout A really quite delightful short novel based on a very fanciful -- Dickensianly fanciful, in fact -- account of the writing and publication of A Christmas Carol. Dickens is immensely broke. His wife Catherine is expecting yet another addition to the family. His books haven't been selling -- the most recent, Martin Chuzzlewit, was a complete disaster. He's pretty certain his publishers, Squib & Ledrook, have been cheating him. Thomas Carlyle thinks his friend Charley should give up this fiction stuff to which he's obviously not suited and do something sensible like resume his journalistic career. But then Dickens has the inspiration for a book that will be such a surefire bestseller that all the family's financial problems will be over and done with forever . . . The tale of how Dickens not just gets the book written and published but thwarts enemies, makes new friends among the Whitechapel urchin classes, spreads goodwill and does battle with the ghost of Oliver Cromwell -- the tale involves the intervention of Sir Robert Peel, founder of the Peelers and now prime minister, and Peel's stunningly lovely wife Julia. It's all good stuff, made to be taken with a pinch of salt, and it rollicks along in amiable, deliberately slightly over-the-top fashion. Davis, who's an American, gets the Old Country's version of English right most of the time, and after a while I found myself regarding her not infrequent lapses as just a part of the book's charm. There's no reason at all why you should wait until Christmas to stuff a stocking -- your friend's or your child's or even your own. If you want to be traditionalist about things, though, the book's short enough that you could read it all on Christmas day while the relatives are quarreling. A spiffy read.