A Christmas Carol

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A Christmas Carol
Cover of the first edition (1843)
Author	Charles Dickens
Original title	A Christmas Carol
Illustrator	John Leech
Country	England
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novella Parable Social criticism Ghost story Morality tale Christmas fiction Fairy tale
Publisher	Chapman & Hall
Publication date	19 December 1843
Media type	Print
Preceded by	Martin Chuzzlewit
Followed by	The Chimes

A Christmas Carol (sub-titled "In Prose. Being A Ghost Story of Christmas")^{[note 1]} is a novella by English author Charles Dickens, about a miserly, cold-hearted curmudgeon Ebenezer Scrooge and his holiday conversion and redemption after being visited by four ghosts on Christmas Eve. The book was first published on 19 December 1843 with illustrations by John Leech, and quickly met with commercial success and critical acclaim. The tale has been viewed as an indictment of nineteenth century industrial capitalism and has been credited with returning the holiday to one of merriment and festivity in Britain and America after a period of sobriety and sombreness. A Christmas Carol remains popular, has never been out of print,^[1] and has been adapted to film, opera, and other media.

Contents 1 Context 2 Sources 3 Plot 4 Publication 5 Critical reception 6 Impact 7 Themes 8 Legacy 9 History of the manuscript 10 Adaptations 11 References 12 External links

[edit] Context

The vision of Christmas Dickens offers the reader in A Christmas Carol is a secularization of a sacred Christian holy day.^[2] His vision has its roots in the pagan customs of the Roman Saturnalia and the Germanic Yule, and the festivities of the medieval Christmas celebrations under the Anglo-Norman kings.^[2][3]

In the middle 17th century, Christmas celebrations were curbed under Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans.^[2][4] Specific laws forbade the secular celebration of Christmas, and the day was reserved for meditation and prayer rather than public or private merriment.^[4] Some traditional celebration was renewed during the Restoration, but, by the end of the 18th century, the old customs had been forgotten and the court showed little interest in lavish celebration.^[5]

In the middle 19th century, a nostalgic interest in the old Christmas traditions swept Victorian England following the publications of Davies Gilbert's Some Ancient Christmas Carols (1822), William Sandys's Selection of Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern (1833), and Thomas K. Hervey's The Book of Christmas (1837). That interest was further stimulated by Prince Albert's introduction of the Christmas tree in 1841, the first Christmas card in 1843, and a revival in carol singing.^[6][5] Hervey's study on Christmas customs attributed their passing to social change and the urbanization of England.^[2][5]

Dickens's Carol was one of the single greatest influences in rejuvenating the old Christmas traditions of England, but, while it brings to the reader images of light, joy, warmth, and life it also brings strong and unforgettable images of darkness, despair, coldness, and death.^[6] Scrooge himself is the embodiment of winter, and, just as winter is followed by spring and the renewal of life, so too is Scrooge's cold, pinched heart restored to the innocent goodwill he had known in his childhood and youth.^[7][8]

[edit] Sources

The principal forces that shaped A Christmas Carol were the profoundly humiliating experiences of the author's childhood, his sympathy during the decades of the 1830s and 1840s with the poor, especially children, and Washington Irving's stories of the traditional old English Christmas. While there are other authors before Dickens who celebrated the season, it was Dickens who imposed his secular vision of the holiday upon the public.^[9]

In 1824, Dickens's father John Dickens was arrested for debt and imprisoned in the Marshalsea. The family moved into the prison but twelve-year-old Charles was forced to take lodgings nearby, pawn his collection of books, leave school, and accept employment in a blacking factory. The boy had a deep sense of class and intellectual superiority and was entirely uncomfortable in the presence of the other factory workers who referred to him as "the young gentleman." He developed nervous fits. When his father was released at the end of a three month stint, young Dickens was forced to continue working in the factory which only grieved and humiliated him further. He despaired of ever recovering his former happy life. The devastating impact of the period wounded him psychologically, coloured his work, and haunted his entire life with disturbing memories. It was during this period Dickens observed the lives of the men, women, and children in the most impoverished areas of London and witnessed the social injustices they suffered.^[10][11]

In early 1843, Dickens toured the Cornish tin mines where he saw children working in the most appalling conditions. The suffering he witnessed there was reinforced by a visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, one of several London schools set up for the education of the capital's half-starved, illiterate street children. Dickens read the Second Report of the Children's Employment Commission dated February 1843, a parliamentary report that exposed the horrifying effects the Industrial Revolution inflicted upon the lives of poor children.^[12] In a speech at the Manchester Athenaeum, he urged workers and employers to join together to combat ignorance with education.^[13] In May 1843, he planned to publish an inexpensive political pamphlet tentatively titled, "An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man's Child" but changed his mind, deferring the pamphlet's production until the end of the year. He wrote to Dr. Southwood Smith, one of four commissioners responsible for the Second Report, about his change in plans: "[Y]ou will certainly feel that a Sledge hammer has come down with twenty times the force – twenty thousand times the force – I could exert by following out my first idea." The pamphlet would become A Christmas Carol.^[14]

The descriptions of long-abandoned English Christmas customs and traditions in Washington Irving's The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. which contained five chapters on festivities in and around a Yorkshire manor called Bracebridge Hall (which Irving later turned into the setting for a longer work, but with almost nothing about Christmas), attracted Dickens,^[9] and the two authors shared the belief that the staging of a nostalgic English Christmas might restore a social harmony and well-being lost in the modern world.^[15] In "A Christmas Dinner" from Sketches by Boz (1833), Dickens had approached the holiday in a manner similar to Irving, and, in the Pickwick Papers (1837), he offered an idealized vision of an 18th century Christmas at Dingley Dell.^[15] In the Pickwick episode, Mr. Wardle relates the tale of Gabriel Grub, a lonely and mean-spirited sexton, who undergoes a Christmas conversion and transformation after being visited by goblins who show him the past and future – the prototype of A Christmas Carol.^[16][17]

Other likely influences were a visit made by Dickens to the Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in April 1842;^[18] the decade-long fascination on both sides of the Atlantic with spiritualism;^[10] fairy tales and nursery stories (which Dickens regarded as stories of conversion and transformation);^[19] contemporary religious tracts about conversion;^[19] and the works of Douglas Jerrold in general, but especially "The Beauties of the Police" (1843), a satirical and melodramatic essay about a father and his child forcibly separated in a workhouse,^[18] and another satirical essay by Jerrold which may have had a direct influence on Dickens's conception of Scrooge called "How Mr. Chokepear keeps a merry Christmas" (Punch, 1841).^[1]

The Chancery Lane offices, formerly Smithson's Solicitors in the town of Malton, North Yorkshire were the model for Scrooge’s counting house in Carol, and the church bells which feature so prominently in the novel were those of St. Leonard’s on Church Hill, Malton. Dickens befriended Charles Smithson whilst he was in London completing his legal training. A lifelong friendship ensued which involved Dickens visiting Malton many times and featuring many of the people and places he met through Charles Smithson in his writings.^{[citation needed]}

Dickens provided vestiges of the old Christmas style in Carol with family feasts and fun but chose a setting of dreary city streets, unheated offices, and urban homes rather than the countryside manor house.^[15]

[edit] Plot

The tale begins on Christmas Eve seven years after the death of Ebenezer Scrooge's business partner Jacob Marley. Scrooge is established as a greedy and heartless banker and landlord, who cruelly overworks and undercompensates his clerk, Bob Cratchit. That night, Marley's ghost appears before Scrooge and warns him that his soul will be bearing heavy chains for eternity if he does not change his greedy ways, and further warns Scrooge that a series of other ghosts will visit him during the next three nights.

As Marley prophesied, three Christmas ghosts subsequently visit Scrooge. The first, the Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge to the scenes of his boyhood and youth which stir the old miser's gentle and tender side by reminding him of a time when he was more innocent. The second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to several radically differing scenes (a joy-filled market of people buying the makings of Christmas dinner, the family feast of Scrooge's near-impoverished clerk Bob Cratchit, a miner's cottage, and a lighthouse among other sites) in order to evince from the miser a sense of responsibility for his fellow man. The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, harrows Scrooge with dire visions of the future if he does not learn and act upon what he has witnessed. Most disturbing to Scrooge are visions of a pawnbroker bidding on Scrooge's belongings, stolen from his home by his domestic servants; of a covered corpse on Scrooge's bed, presumably his own; of the callous indifference of Scrooge's fellow members of the stock exchange to the news of a death, again presumably Scrooge's; and of the grief-stricken Crachit family following Tiny Tim's death, the implication being that Tim will die because of Scrooge's failure to pay Crachit a just wage sufficient to care for the boy. The final vision presented by the spirit is of Scrooge's own neglected and untended grave, prompting the miser to aver that he will change his ways in hopes of changing these "shadows of what may be."

Scrooge awakens Christmas morning with joy and love in his heart, then spends the day with his nephew's family^[20] after anonymously sending a prize turkey to the Crachit home for Christmas dinner. Scrooge has become a different man overnight, and now treats his fellow men with kindness, generosity, and compassion, gaining a reputation as a man who embodies the spirit of Christmas.

The final section of the book includes a practical joke the once humourless Scrooge plays on his clerk, Bob Cratchit, when the latter returns to work on Boxing Day. Scrooge seemingly berates Crachit for his late arrival at the office after taking Christmas Day off to be with his family and leads Cratchit to believe he will fire him, but instead shocks him by raising his wages and talking to Cratchit about how he can help his family, the details of which are to be discussed later that day over a hot toddy.

The story closes with the narrator confirming the validity, completeness, and permanence of Scrooge's transformation.

[edit] Publication

Dickens began Carol in October 1843,^[21] and completed the book in six weeks with the final pages written in the beginning of December.^[22] As the result of a feud with his publisher over the meager earnings on Martin Chuzzlewit,^[23] Dickens declined a lump-sum payment for the tale, chose a percentage of the profits in hopes of making more money thereby, and published the work at his own expense.^[22] High production costs however brought him a mere £230 rather than the £1,000 he expected – and needed, as his wife was once again pregnant.^{[23][24][note 2]}

The book was published in London by Chapman and Hall on 19 December 1843,^{[note 3]} and bound in red cloth with gilt-edged pages.^[21][22] Four expensive, hand-coloured etchings and four black and white wood engravings by John Leech accompanied the text.^[22] Production was not without problems. The drab olive endpapers were replaced for the second printing with yellow endpapers, but, once replaced, clashed with the title page which was then redone.^[12][25] Modestly priced at five shillings,^[22] the first run of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve and the book continued to sell well into the New Year.^[12][26] By May 1844, a seventh edition had sold out. In all, twenty-four editions ran in its original form.^[27] In spite of the disappointing profits for the author, the book was a huge artistic success with most critics responding positively.^[26] The tale gave Dickens's career a much needed boost after the commercial disappointment of his previous novel, Martin Chuzzlewit.

[edit] Critical reception

The book received immediate critical acclaim. The Athenaeum declared it, "A tale to make the reader laugh and cry—to open his hands, and open his heart to charity even toward the uncharitable [...] a dainty dish to set before a King." Poet and editor Thomas Hood wrote, "If Christmas, with its ancient and hospitable customs, its social and charitable observances, were ever in danger of decay, this is the book that would give them a new lease. The very name of the author predisposes one to the kindlier feelings; and a peep at the Frontispiece sets the animal spirits capering [...]".^[28]

William Makepeace Thackeray in Fraser's Magazine pronounced the book, "a national benefit and to every man or woman who reads it, a personal kindness. The last two people I heard speak of it were women; neither knew the other, or the author, and both said, by way of criticism, 'God bless him!'" About Tiny Tim, Thackeray wrote, "There is not a reader in England but that little creature will be a bond of union between the author and him; and he will say of Charles Dickens, as the woman just now, 'GOD BLESS HIM!' What a feeling this is for a writer to inspire, and what a reward to reap!" (Kelly 18). Dickens was "touched to the quick" by Thackeray's warm-hearted review.^[29]

Even the caustic critic Theodore Martin (who was usually virulently hostile to Dickens), spoke well of the book, noting it was "[...] finely felt, and calculated to work much social good". In the spring of 1844, The Gentleman's Magazine attributed a sudden explosion of generosity in Britain toward the poor, to Dickens' novella.^[30] Dickens later commented that he received "by every post, all manner of strangers writing all manner of letters about their homes and hearths, and how the Carol is read aloud there, and kept on a very little shelf by itself".^[31] After Dickens's death, Margaret Oliphant deplored the turkey and plum pudding aspects of the book but admitted that in the days of its first publication it was regarded as "a new gospel" and noted that the book was unique in that it actually made people behave better.^[30]

Americans were less enthusiastic. Dickens had wounded their national pride with American Notes for General Circulation and Martin Chuzzlewit, but Carol was too compelling to be dismissed, and, by the end of the American Civil War, copies of the book were in wide circulation.^[32] The New York Times published an enthusiastic review in 1863 noting that the author brought the "old Christmas […] of bygone centuries and remote manor houses, into the living rooms of the poor of today" while the North American Review believed Dickens’s "fellow feeling with the race is his genius"; and John Greenleaf Whittier thought the book charming, "inwardly and outwardly".^[33]

For Americans, Scrooge’s redemption may have recalled that of the United States as it recovered from war,^[34] and the curmudgeon’s charitable generosity to the poor in the final pages a reflection of a similar generosity practiced by Americans as they sought solutions to poverty.^[35] The book's issues are detectable from a slightly different perspective in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and Scrooge is likely an influence upon Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957).^[36]

[edit] Impact

A Christmas Carol was republished without authorisation in January 1844 by Parley's Illuminated Library,^[16] and, though Dickens sued and won his case, the publishers simply declared bankruptcy leaving Dickens to pay £700 in costs.^[16][37] The entanglements of the various suits Dickens brought against the publishers, his resulting financial losses, and the meager profits from the sale of Carol, greatly disappointed Dickens. He felt a very special affection for the book's moral lesson and its message of love and generosity that he wanted to proclaim to all the world. In his tale of a man who is given a second chance to live a good life, he was demonstrating to his readers that they, too, could achieve a similar salvation in a selfish world that had blunted their generosity and compassion.^[16]

The novella was adapted for the stage almost immediately. Three productions opened on 5 February 1844 with one by Edward Stirling sanctioned by Dickens and running for more than forty nights.^[38] By the close of February 1844, eight rival Carol theatrical productions were playing in London.^{[26][note 4]} Stirling's version played New York City's Park Theater during the Christmas season of 1844 and was revived in London the same year.^[39] Hundreds of newsboys gathered for a musical version of the tale at the Chatham Theater in New York City in 1844 but brawling broke out which was only quashed when offenders were led off by police to The Tombs. Even after order had been restored in the theater, the clamorous cries of one youngster drowned out the bass drum that ushered Marley onto the stage as he rose through a trap door.^{[40][note 5]}

In the years following the book's publication, responses to the tale were published by W. M. Swepstone (Christmas Shadows, 1850), Horatio Alger (Job Warner's Christmas, 1863), Louisa May Alcott (A Christmas Dream, and How It Came True, 1882), and others who followed Scrooge's life as a reformed man – or some who thought Dickens had gotten it wrong and needed to be corrected.^[41]

Dickens himself returned to the tale time and again during his life to tweak the phrasing and punctuation,^[41] and capitalized on the success of the book by annually publishing other Christmas stories in 1844, 1845, 1846, and 1848.^[42] The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain were all based on the pattern laid down in Carol—a secular conversion tale laced with social injustice.^[42] While the public eagerly bought the later books, the critics bludgeoned them.^[42] One described The Battle of Life as "the worst ... the very worst", and Dickens himself questioned the story's worth.^{[43][note 6]}

By 1849, Dickens was working on David Copperfield and had neither the time nor the inclination to produce another Christmas book.^[44] Disappointed with those that followed Carol, he decided the best way to reach his audience with his 'Carol philosophy' was via public readings.^[45] In 1853, Carol was the text chosen for his first public reading with the performance an immense success.^[14] Thereafter, he read the tale in an abbreviated version 127 times,^[45] until 1870 (the year of his death) when it provided the material for his farewell performance.^[14][45]

[edit] Themes

Dickens wrote in the wake of British government changes to the welfare system known as the Poor Laws, changes which required among other things, welfare applicants to "work" on treadmills. Dickens asks, in effect, for people to recognise the plight of those whom the Industrial Revolution has displaced and driven into poverty, and the obligation of society to provide for them humanely. Failure to do so, the writer implies through the personification of Ignorance and Want as ghastly children, will result in an unnamed "Doom" for those who, like Scrooge, believe their wealth and status qualifies them to sit in judgement of the poor rather than to assist them.^[46]

Some critics like Restad have suggested that Scrooge's redemption underscores what they see as the conservative, individualistic, and patriarchal aspects of Dickens's 'Carol philosophy', which propounded the idea of a more fortunate individual willingly looking after a less fortunate one. Personal moral conscience and individual action led in effect to a form of 'noblesse oblige' which was expected of those individuals of means.^[35]

[edit] Legacy

Since its first publication, A Christmas Carol has had a profound effect upon its audience. A Mr. Fairbanks attended a reading on Christmas Eve in Boston in 1867, for example, and was so moved he closed his factory on Christmas Day and sent every employee a turkey.^[26] Dickens's joyful depiction of Christmas has its roots in the ancient Saturnalia and in the appropriation of pre-Christian customs by the Medieval church.^[47] The book redefined the spirit and importance of Christmas and initiated a rebirth of seasonal merriment after Puritan authorities in 17th century England and America suppressed pre-Christian rituals associated with the holiday.^[47] The religious and social implications of Carol and its depiction of Christmas traditions have played a significant role in reinventing Christmas with an emphasis on family, goodwill, and compassion.^[48]

According to historian Ronald Hutton, the current state of observance of Christmas is largely the result of a mid-Victorian revival of the holiday spearheaded by A Christmas Carol. Hutton argues, Dickens sought to construct Christmas as a family-centered festival of generosity, in contrast to the community-based and church-centered observations, the observance of which had dwindled during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.^[49] Superimposing his secular vision of the holiday, Dickens influenced many aspects of Christmas that are celebrated today in Western culture, such as family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games, and a festive generosity of spirit.^[50] A prominent phrase from the tale, 'Merry Christmas', was popularized following the appearance of the story.^[51] The name Scrooge entered the English language as a synonym for a miser, and the phrase 'Bah! Humbug!' dismissive of the festive spirit.^[52]

[edit] History of the manuscript

When the manuscript was returned after printing, Dickens arranged for it to be bound in red Morocco leather and presented it as a gift to his solicitor, Thomas Mitton, from whom he had borrowed some money.  The front cover was lettered, "Thomas Mitton Esqre." with the spine reading, "A Christmas Carol / Dickens / MDCCCXLIII".^[53]

In 1875, Thomas Mitton sold the manuscript to Francis Harvey, a bookseller, for £50, who in turn, sold it to Henry George Churchill, an autograph collector. Churchill had it photographed and had 750 facsimile copies made from these photographs. In 1882, he sold the manuscript to Bennett, a Birmingham bookseller, who in turn sold it for £200 to Stuart M. Samuel, of Samuel Montagu & Co. It was then purchased by J. Pearson & Co., presumably from Samuel, for £1000.^[53]

Finally, it was purchased by John Pierpont Morgan, a fan of Dickens, in the 1890s. He acquired it for more than £600, the equivalent of £150,000 today.^[54][55] The manuscript was donated to the American people after his death in 1913,^[56] and is now held by The Morgan Library & Museum which displays it at Christmas. 

[edit] Adaptations

The story has been adapted to other media including film, opera, ballet, a Broadway musical (1979's Comin' Uptown, which featured an all African-American cast), a BBC mime production starring Marcel Marceau, Benjamin Britten's 1947 chamber orchestra composition Men of Goodwill: Variations on 'A Christmas Carol.^[1]

A Christmas Carol is the most re-made motion picture of all time.^{[citation needed]} The oldest known film version is Scrooge, or, Marley's Ghost (1901),^[57] the most recent is Disney's A Christmas Carol (2009),^{[citation needed]} while the most acclaimed are 1951's Scrooge starring Alastair Sim^[58] and A Christmas Carol starring George C. Scott.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References

Notes

Footnotes

Works cited

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: A Christmas Carol

Wikisource has original text related to this article: A Christmas Carol

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: A Christmas Carol

• A Christmas Carol at Internet Archive.
• A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens Website
• A Christmas Carol University of Glasgow Special Collections
• A Christmas Carol e-book with illustrations.
• A Christmas Carol Solo audio version at Archive.org.
• A Christmas Carol Project Gutenberg Free Online Book.

v • d • e Works by Charles Dickens Novels The Pickwick Papers (1836–1837) · Oliver Twist (1837–1839) · Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839) · The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–1841) · Barnaby Rudge (1840–1841) · Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–1844) · Dombey and Son (1846–1848) · David Copperfield (1849–1850) · Bleak House (1852–1853) · Hard Times (1854) · Little Dorrit (1855–1857) · A Tale of Two Cities (1859) · Great Expectations (1860–1861) · Our Mutual Friend (1864–1865) · The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished) (1870) Christmas books A Christmas Carol (1843) · The Chimes (1844) · The Cricket on the Hearth (1845) · The Battle of Life (1846) · The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain (1848) Short stories Sunday Under Three Heads (1836) · The Lamplighter (1838) · A Child's Dream of a Star (1850) · Captain Murderer · The Long Voyage (1853) · The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices (1857) (with Wilkie Collins) · Hunted Down (1859) · The Signal-Man (1866) · George Silverman's Explanation (1868) · Holiday Romance (1868) Christmas short stories A Christmas Tree (1850) · What Christmas is, as We Grow Older (1851) · The Poor Relation's Story (1852) · The Child's Story (1852) · The Schoolboy's Story (1853) · Nobody's Story (1853) · Going into Society (1858) · Somebody's Luggage (1862) · Mrs Lirriper's Lodgings (1863) · Mrs Lirriper's Legacy (1864) · Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions (1865) Short story collections Sketches by Boz (1837–1839) · The Mudfog Papers (1837–1838) · Master Humphrey's Clock (1840–1841) · Boots at the Holly-tree Inn: And Other Stories (1858) · Reprinted Pieces (1861) Nonfiction American Notes (1842) · Pictures from Italy (1846) · The Life of Our Lord (1846, published in 1934) · A Child's History of England (1851–1853) · The Uncommercial Traveller (1860–1869) Poetry & plays The Village Coquettes (play, 1836) · The Fine Old English Gentleman (poetry, 1841) · The Frozen Deep (play, 1866) (with Wilkie Collins)  · No Thoroughfare: A Drama: In Five Acts (play, 1867) (with Wilkie Collins) Journalism The Examiner (1808–1886) · Monthly Magazine (1833–1835) · Morning Chronicle (1834–1836) · Evening Chronicle (1835) · Bentley's Miscellany (1836–1838) · Master Humphrey's Clock (1840–1841) · The Pic-Nic Papers (1841) · Daily News (1846) · Household Words (1850–1859) · All the Year Round (1858–1870) Collaborative works Household Words: The Seven Poor Travellers (1854) (with Wilkie Collins, Adelaide Proctor, George Sala and Eliza Linton) · The Holly-tree Inn (1855) · (with Wilkie Collins, William Howitt, Harriet Parr, and Adelaide Procter) · The Wreck of the Golden Mary (1856) (with Wilkie Collins, Adelaide Proctor, Harriet Parr, Percy Fitzgerald and Rev. James White) · The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) (with Wilkie Collins) · A House to Let (1858) (with Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Procter) All the Year Round: The Haunted House (1859) (with Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Adelaide Procter, George Sala, and Hesba Stretton)  · A Message from the Sea (1860) (with Wilkie Collins, Robert Buchanan, Charles Allston Collins, Amelia Edwards, and Harriet Parr) · Tom Tiddler's Ground (1861) (with Wilkie Collins, John Harwood, Charles Allston Collins, and Amelia Edwards) · The Trial for Murder (1865) (with Charles Allston Collins) · Mugby Junction (1866) (with Andrew Halliday, Charles Allston Collins, Hesba Stretton and Amelia Edwards) · No Thoroughfare (1867) (with Wilkie Collins) Articles & essays A Visit to Newgate (1836) · Epitaph of Charles Irving Thornton (1842) · In Memoriam W. M. Thackeray (1850) · A Coal Miner's Evidence (1850) · Frauds on the Fairies (1853) · The Lost Arctic Voyagers (1854)

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