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MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot--say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance--literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names: it was all the same to him.

Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often 'came down' handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, 'My dear Scrooge, how are you? when will you come to see me?' No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was 'oclock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blindmen's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up...

 

Put Hagrid, Dumbledore, and Moody out of your mind and revel in the story of Scrooge, some choice spirits, and the lushness of Dickensian prose, winningly articulated by Harry Potter narrator Jim Dale, who rescues A CHRISTMAS CAROL from the cloying sweetness of many cinematic interpretations. Fezziwig, Bob Cratchit, Jacob Marley, the spirits, and even Tiny Tim are accorded their unique characterizations. The versatile British actor's performance of Scrooge as he discovers that his body is left abandoned on a denuded bedstead is as raw and real as when the classic tale was written in the closing weeks of 1843. Dale makes us believe in the Scrooge whose spark has been quenched and carries us along as we watch the various spirits blow the ashes into embers, and the embers into a merry blaze of timeless Christmas cheer. E.E.E. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2004 YALSA Selection 2005 Audie Award Finalist (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

 

All of the remembered and cherished pleasures of A CHRISTMAS CAROL are present in this wonderful reading by John Lee. His warm voice with its hint of Scottish accent is reminiscent of winter nights and crackling fires and good stories told aloud. There are none of the typical sound effects or musical interludes in this version of A CHRISTMAS CAROL, and it doesn't need them. The story and the fine narrator suffice. Lee reads clearly and emotively, encouraging the listener to relish the poetry of Dickens's language, and to delight in the drama and humor of the tale. Give this to yourself, then add to the pleasure by sharing it with the entire family. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

 

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
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