A Christmas Carol in nineteenth-century America, 1844-1870

Ruys Smith, Thomas ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9177-9536 (2023) A Christmas Carol in nineteenth-century America, 1844-1870. Comparative American Studies, 20 (3-4). pp. 205-229. ISSN 1477-5700

[thumbnail of A Christmas Carol In Nineteenth Century America 1844 1870]
Preview
PDF (A Christmas Carol In Nineteenth Century America 1844 1870) - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives.

Download (12MB) | Preview

Abstract

Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol retains a profound presence in Transatlantic seasonal celebrations and the popular image of the festive period. While the book’s reception in the United Kingdom has been well studied, its early progress through nineteenth-century American popular culture has received much less attention and existing accounts of its rise to popularity are contradictory. This article, therefore, is an attempt to trace the ways that American readers and audiences responded to this defining Transatlantic text in the decades between its first publication and Dickens’s death in 1870. After exploring its immediate reception in the wake of its first publication in America, I examine the changing status of A Christmas Carol in relation to both Dickens’s American reading tour of 1867–8 and the aftermath of his death – finding the book, throughout those decades, to be a crucial arbiter of both the popular idea of Christmas and the reputation of Dickens and his work more broadly.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Christmas issue
Uncontrolled Keywords: 4* ,/dk/atira/pure/researchoutput/REFrank/4_
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Art, Media and American Studies
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Area Studies
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > American Studies
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 30 May 2023 08:30
Last Modified: 04 Jan 2024 03:07
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/92198
DOI: 10.1080/14775700.2023.2229214

Actions (login required)

View Item View Item