3.87 Complete review pending. ( )

I'll be the first to admit that much of the writing of Dickens gives me brain pain, and yet, A Christmas Carol has always carried a special magic. I grew up watching the 1951 film version (featuring Alastair Sim) with my family every Christmas and finally chose to read the original story a few years ago while living in a mud brick house in rural Tanzania and feeling morose about not spending the holiday season with my family. And, much as Standiford reflects in his charming account, I was truly imbued with a special dose of Dickensian Christmas magic. The Man Who Invented Christmas is the perfect blend of biography, history, and (I'll say it again) Christmas magic as we experience Dickens' harsh childhood that shaped his future writing, follow him through the highs and lows of his literary career, and marvel at how a single story forever changed how we celebrate our arguably most beloved holiday. The snippets of Christmas lore were fascinating, the glimpses of Victorian England thoroughly transported me, and the stories of Dickens himself had me charmed by an author I've always kept decidedly at arms length. An engaging read that offers a brief glimpse into the long history of the Christmas holiday and an appropriately heartwarming understanding of Dickens' most wondrous tale.

Charles Dickens, given his immense and lasting influence and his association with all things Victorian, played a major role in transforming a celebration dating back to pre-Christian times, revitalizing forgotten customs and introducing new ones that now define the holiday. Peter Ackroyd and other modern commentators have credited Dickens with having singlehandedly created the modern idea of Christmas, and if that is a grand claim, it is grounded in the facts. If Dickens did not invent Christmas, he certainly reinvented in. ( )

The reason I "liked" this book is because I love most of Dickens' novels. As an English major, I read them and discussed them and wrote about them. But I had never read a full-on biography of Dickens, so some of the wearisome details were "new" to me. Unfortunately, I didn't realize I was going to be reading a biography when I started. I thought this would be focused on A Christmas Carol as described on the dust jacket blurb and instead I got much more than I wanted about the history of publishing (primarily in Britain), Dickens' lifetime monetary ups and downs, his travels, and the romantic relationship in his later years. I think the author had done a lot of research and was bound and determined to include all this information. What was most interesting (and the reason I wanted to read this book) was how the celebration of Christmas - all the decorations, songs, traditions, foods, colors, and even Santa Claus, were inspired by A Christmas Carol, which is one of my favorite Christmas stories (be it book, movie, or cartoon). That explanation probably took up a quarter of the book. So overall, this book was a disappointment. ( )

„Eliminate ignorance, Dickens dreamed in his Carol. Eliminate want. A tall order then, and a tall order now.” (Original citation page 226)

Theme and genre:
This book is part a specific biography of Charles Dickens, part a historical overview about live conditions in London around the middle of the 19th century. It also gives a detailed description and complete overview of literature, writing and of publishing during those times, between family enterprises and booksellers who began to set up the whole production process of their books.

But most of all this is the loveable story about one of the most wonderful Christmas books, “A Christmas Carol”, about the idea behind the ghostly story, the realization and what Dickens wanted to tell his readers. He wanted to touch them, making them laugh and cry at the same time and to re-new the Christmas spirit. Which he does until today.

Conclusion:
A non-fiction story, written in a poetic prose, as delightful to read as the original story. A book for everybody who knows values and loves the Seasonal Writings of Charles Dickens.
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I was expecting this to be such a good book, instead all I can say is it is okay. I don't think that I learned much from it any more so than I would have read in wikipedia, I felt that the author was quite detached from Charles Dickens and it was like reading a bland rendition of something that the author looked up in various books about Dickens and simply put in order and had printed into a book. Maybe reading it in the beginning of December might give it a bit more interest, but I wanted to get a more personal look into the man than this gives. To be honest I was so relieved when it was over... ( )