Go onstage with Charles Dickens as he performs his Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens could not only write a crackling good story, he could perform it. And so in 1853, he took his
Christmas Carol show on the road, first in Britain and then in the U.S. audiences loved it. Dickens didn't simply read from his book. He transformed it into a stageworthy script—cutting, pasting together pages of excised passages, adding stage cues for himself, rewriting, then cutting some more.
Such an annotated stage copy is called a prompt copy. There is only one such copy of
A Christmas Carol created by Dickens himself, and The New York Public Library has it. We partnered with the Library to bring you, for the first time, a full-color facsimile of it, revealing all of Dickens's handwritten markings. A new introduction by Library curator Isaac Gewirtz gives the backstory on how Dickens used this book, and a transcription of his emended text means you—or a showman you love—can read aloud
A Christmas Carol much as the author did. It's a rare Christmas treasure and a new way to savor this timeless tale.
Only from Levenger.Click here to read some excerpts.
Our first review is from Dickens's great-great grandson, who writes...
"...a brilliant book, beautifully done. I perform readings of the great work and this brings it alive to me. I have always wanted to read it in exactly the same way he did and now I can. It also means a great deal to have the manuscript in his own hand. It conveys so much more."
-Mark Charles Dickens
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