The narrow space within which it was necessary to confine these Christmas Stories, when they were originally published, rendered their construction a matter of some difficulty, and almost necessitated what is peculiar in their machinery. I never attempted great elaboration of detail in the working out of character within such limits, believing that it could not succeed. My purpose was, in a whimsical kind of masque which the goodhumour of the season justified, to awaken some loving and forbearing thoughts, never out of season in a Christian land.

preface: Vorwort. Dickens stellte dieses Vorwort seiner 1852 veröffentlichten Sammlung Christmas Books voraus, die folgende Geschichten enthielt: A Christmas Carol (1843), The Chimes (1844), The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846) und The Haunted Man (1847). In den folgenden Jahren veröffentlichte Dickens in der von ihm herausgegebenen Zeitschrift Household Words zahlreiche Kurzgeschichten zur Weihnachtsthematik.to necessitate: erforderlich machen.machinery: hier: Aufbau, Konstruktion. Dieser Ausdruck wurde im Epos vornehmlich für die Götterwelt verwandt.whimsical: spaßig, seltsam.masque: Maskenspiel (ursprünglich höfische Unterhaltung, später gehörten solche Maskenspiele auch zu den typischen Unterhaltungen der Weihnachtszeit in England).forbearing: nachsichtig, geduldig.

[4] Preface

I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book to raise the Ghost of an Idea which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

Their faithful Friend and Servant,

C. D.

December 1843.

to put out: hier: verstimmen, ärgern.to lay: hier: (einen Geist) bannen.

Characters

BOB CRATCHIT, clerk to Ebenezer Scrooge

PETER CRATCHIT, a son of the preceding

TIM CRATCHIT (‘Tiny Tim’), a cripple, youngest son of Bob Cratchit

MR. FEZZIWIG, a kind-hearted, jovial old merchant

FRED, Scrooge’s nephew

GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST, a phantom showing things past

GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT, a spirit of a kind, generous, and hearty nature

[5] GHOST OF CHRISTMAS YET YO COME, an apparition showing the shadows of things which yet may happen

GHOST OF JACOB MARLEY, a spectre of Scrooge’s former partner in business

JOE, a marine-store dealer and receiver of stolen goods

EBENEZER SCROOGE, a grasping, covetous old man, the surviving partner of the firm of Scrooge and Marley

MR. TOPPER, a bachelor

DICK WILKINS, a fellow-apprentice of Scrooge’s

BELLE, a comely matron, an old sweetheart of Scrooge’s

CAROLINE, wife of one of Scrooge’s debtors

MRS. CRATCHIT, wife of Bob Cratchit

BELINDA and MARTHA CRATCHIT, daughters of the preceding

MRS. DILBER, a laundress

FAN, the sister of Scrooge

MRS. FEZZIWIG, the worthy partner of Mr. Fezziwig

Cratchit: sprechender Name: abgeleitet von to scratch ›kratzen (auf dem Papier)‹.Scrooge: sprechender Name: Geizhals.spectre: Geist (eines Toten).marine-store: Handlung für Schiffsbedarf.receiver of stolen goods: Hehler.covetous: habgierig.comely: anmutig.matron: Hausfrau (impliziert Würde und Erfahrung).laundress: Wäscherin.

[7] A Christmas Carol

In Prose being

A Ghost Story of Christmas

Stave I Marley’s Ghost

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 [8] Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

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