Online Exhibition: Character Sketches from the World of Charles Dickens
This exhibition celebrates one of the most enduring legacies of Charles Dickens's genius: the unforgettable characters he brought to life.
"Business!" cried the Ghost . . . "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity; mercy; forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol in Prose with illustrations by John Leech. London: Chapman and Hall, 1843.
Scrooge, played by Reginald Owen, is visited by the ghost of his former business partner, Leo G. Carroll’s Jacob Marley, in the 1938 MGM film version. The Internet Movie Database lists fifty-eight film and TV titles, including contributions by The Smurfs and The Muppets.
Theatre Collection
"In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile." This cheerful image was used as the frontispiece for the novella.
Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol in Prose with illustrations by John Leech. London: Chapman and Hall, 1843.
"And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased . . ."
Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol in Prose with illustrations by John Leech. London: Chapman and Hall, 1843.
"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?"
Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol in Prose with illustrations by John Leech. London: Chapman and Hall, 1843.
A Christmas Carol has been a staple of Christmastime theatre since the late nineteenth century. This production was staged at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Center in December of 1981 by the McCarter Theatre Company.
Dickens Ephemera Collection
The image of Tiny Tim holding his crutches and being carried on the back of Bob Cratchit, although not one of the original illustrations, has become part of the imagery of Christmas.
Jessie Wilcox Smith. The Children of Dickens by Samuel McChord Crothers. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925.