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A Christmas Carol, The Chimes & The Cricket on the Hearth (Barnes & Noble Classics)

by Charles Dickens
Paperback |English |1593080336 | 9781593080334

A Christmas Carol, The Chimes & The Cricket on the Hearth (Barnes & Noble Classics)

by Charles Dickens
Paperback |English |1593080336 | 9781593080334
Overview
From Katherine Kroeber Wiley's Introduction toA Christmas Carol, The Chimes, and The Cricket on the Hearth"Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that." Thus begins Dickens's most famous and yet poorly understood work. It does not start with a description of Scrooge as a miser, but with death. All of Dickens's Christmas books revolve around death. Americans and Europeans of the twenty-first century are fairly sheltered from death—it seldom happens in our homes, for instance; we can bring people back from the brink of death in ways inconceivable to Victorians; we have powerful drugs to ease the pain of, say, cancer, and so forth. In Dickens's day, one could die from an infected cut; today we simply slap on some antibiotic ointment and feel confident we'll be all right. Death was very present and very haunting to the Victorians. Children and women were particularly vulnerable; we may find some of the sentiment over Tiny Tim cloying, but through him Dickens strove to present the special poignancy of the deaths of children.Having started with Marley's death, and Scrooge's full knowledge and experience of it, Dickens goes on to say that Scrooge never painted over Marley's name on the warehouse door: "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." Dickens then presents Scrooge's miserliness, but he first presents Scrooge as so far astray he no longer even possesses a true sense of self. Scrooge is not a person, even to himself, but a business. It is that lack of self that leads to his miserliness and his alienation from humanity.The theme of blindness or deliberate obtuseness, important inThe Cricket on the HearthandThe Chimes, appears quite early inA Christmas Carol. Scrooge's nephew, in bursting in upon him, precipitates Scrooge's well-known contemptuous remarks upon Christmas. Upon the nephew's departure two "portly gentlemen" approach; they are setting up a fund to "buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth." Scrooge inquires of them as to the state of the prisons, workhouses, the treadmill, and the Poor Law. Prisons and workhouses alike were dreadful places, dank and dark, in which families could not live together but were divided up by gender and age. The treadmills, invented in 1818 originally were actual engines, designed to power mills that ground corn and the like; various laws dealing with the poor established the presence of treadmills in the workhouses. By Dickens's time, however, the treadmills were merely objects in which the poor could be simultaneously contained and worked into exhaustion; no product resulted but the further degradation of the workers. The Poor Law of 1834 divided the poor into the "deserving" and the "undeserving." The "help" provided to the deserving was scant indeed, more theory than fact, and it was almost impossible to prove one was deserving. The decision truly rested with people who sat on the boards of directors of workhouses or other persons living in comfort that was derived from profits expanded, in part, by paying out only very little to help those in need. Whatever its intention, the Poor Law provided a mere facade of welfare; in fact, it was a series of impossible obstacles.The portly gentlemen point out to Scrooge that prisons and workhouses "scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body"—Dickens presumes that Christianity declares that all people are entitled to cheer of mind, not merely a life of subsistence-and that "many can't go there; and many would rather die.""If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides—excuse me—I don't know that.""But you might know it," observed the gentleman."It's not my business," Scrooge returned.There it is, that claim to ignorance—only in this instance the illusion is punctured straight away by the two gentlemen who have made it their business to look about them and perceive the suffering of the world. Scrooge can only not know it by deliberate intent.
ISBN: 1593080336
ISBN13: 9781593080334
Author: Charles Dickens
Publisher: Sterling Publishing
Format: Paperback
PublicationDate: 2004-03-25
Language: English
Edition: Illustrated
PageCount: 304
Dimensions: 5.19 x 0.76 x 8.0 inches
Weight: 8.96 ounces
From Katherine Kroeber Wiley's Introduction toA Christmas Carol, The Chimes, and The Cricket on the Hearth"Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that." Thus begins Dickens's most famous and yet poorly understood work. It does not start with a description of Scrooge as a miser, but with death. All of Dickens's Christmas books revolve around death. Americans and Europeans of the twenty-first century are fairly sheltered from death—it seldom happens in our homes, for instance; we can bring people back from the brink of death in ways inconceivable to Victorians; we have powerful drugs to ease the pain of, say, cancer, and so forth. In Dickens's day, one could die from an infected cut; today we simply slap on some antibiotic ointment and feel confident we'll be all right. Death was very present and very haunting to the Victorians. Children and women were particularly vulnerable; we may find some of the sentiment over Tiny Tim cloying, but through him Dickens strove to present the special poignancy of the deaths of children.Having started with Marley's death, and Scrooge's full knowledge and experience of it, Dickens goes on to say that Scrooge never painted over Marley's name on the warehouse door: "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." Dickens then presents Scrooge's miserliness, but he first presents Scrooge as so far astray he no longer even possesses a true sense of self. Scrooge is not a person, even to himself, but a business. It is that lack of self that leads to his miserliness and his alienation from humanity.The theme of blindness or deliberate obtuseness, important inThe Cricket on the HearthandThe Chimes, appears quite early inA Christmas Carol. Scrooge's nephew, in bursting in upon him, precipitates Scrooge's well-known contemptuous remarks upon Christmas. Upon the nephew's departure two "portly gentlemen" approach; they are setting up a fund to "buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth." Scrooge inquires of them as to the state of the prisons, workhouses, the treadmill, and the Poor Law. Prisons and workhouses alike were dreadful places, dank and dark, in which families could not live together but were divided up by gender and age. The treadmills, invented in 1818 originally were actual engines, designed to power mills that ground corn and the like; various laws dealing with the poor established the presence of treadmills in the workhouses. By Dickens's time, however, the treadmills were merely objects in which the poor could be simultaneously contained and worked into exhaustion; no product resulted but the further degradation of the workers. The Poor Law of 1834 divided the poor into the "deserving" and the "undeserving." The "help" provided to the deserving was scant indeed, more theory than fact, and it was almost impossible to prove one was deserving. The decision truly rested with people who sat on the boards of directors of workhouses or other persons living in comfort that was derived from profits expanded, in part, by paying out only very little to help those in need. Whatever its intention, the Poor Law provided a mere facade of welfare; in fact, it was a series of impossible obstacles.The portly gentlemen point out to Scrooge that prisons and workhouses "scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body"—Dickens presumes that Christianity declares that all people are entitled to cheer of mind, not merely a life of subsistence-and that "many can't go there; and many would rather die.""If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides—excuse me—I don't know that.""But you might know it," observed the gentleman."It's not my business," Scrooge returned.There it is, that claim to ignorance—only in this instance the illusion is punctured straight away by the two gentlemen who have made it their business to look about them and perceive the suffering of the world. Scrooge can only not know it by deliberate intent.

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Overview
From Katherine Kroeber Wiley's Introduction toA Christmas Carol, The Chimes, and The Cricket on the Hearth"Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that." Thus begins Dickens's most famous and yet poorly understood work. It does not start with a description of Scrooge as a miser, but with death. All of Dickens's Christmas books revolve around death. Americans and Europeans of the twenty-first century are fairly sheltered from death—it seldom happens in our homes, for instance; we can bring people back from the brink of death in ways inconceivable to Victorians; we have powerful drugs to ease the pain of, say, cancer, and so forth. In Dickens's day, one could die from an infected cut; today we simply slap on some antibiotic ointment and feel confident we'll be all right. Death was very present and very haunting to the Victorians. Children and women were particularly vulnerable; we may find some of the sentiment over Tiny Tim cloying, but through him Dickens strove to present the special poignancy of the deaths of children.Having started with Marley's death, and Scrooge's full knowledge and experience of it, Dickens goes on to say that Scrooge never painted over Marley's name on the warehouse door: "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." Dickens then presents Scrooge's miserliness, but he first presents Scrooge as so far astray he no longer even possesses a true sense of self. Scrooge is not a person, even to himself, but a business. It is that lack of self that leads to his miserliness and his alienation from humanity.The theme of blindness or deliberate obtuseness, important inThe Cricket on the HearthandThe Chimes, appears quite early inA Christmas Carol. Scrooge's nephew, in bursting in upon him, precipitates Scrooge's well-known contemptuous remarks upon Christmas. Upon the nephew's departure two "portly gentlemen" approach; they are setting up a fund to "buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth." Scrooge inquires of them as to the state of the prisons, workhouses, the treadmill, and the Poor Law. Prisons and workhouses alike were dreadful places, dank and dark, in which families could not live together but were divided up by gender and age. The treadmills, invented in 1818 originally were actual engines, designed to power mills that ground corn and the like; various laws dealing with the poor established the presence of treadmills in the workhouses. By Dickens's time, however, the treadmills were merely objects in which the poor could be simultaneously contained and worked into exhaustion; no product resulted but the further degradation of the workers. The Poor Law of 1834 divided the poor into the "deserving" and the "undeserving." The "help" provided to the deserving was scant indeed, more theory than fact, and it was almost impossible to prove one was deserving. The decision truly rested with people who sat on the boards of directors of workhouses or other persons living in comfort that was derived from profits expanded, in part, by paying out only very little to help those in need. Whatever its intention, the Poor Law provided a mere facade of welfare; in fact, it was a series of impossible obstacles.The portly gentlemen point out to Scrooge that prisons and workhouses "scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body"—Dickens presumes that Christianity declares that all people are entitled to cheer of mind, not merely a life of subsistence-and that "many can't go there; and many would rather die.""If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides—excuse me—I don't know that.""But you might know it," observed the gentleman."It's not my business," Scrooge returned.There it is, that claim to ignorance—only in this instance the illusion is punctured straight away by the two gentlemen who have made it their business to look about them and perceive the suffering of the world. Scrooge can only not know it by deliberate intent.
ISBN: 1593080336
ISBN13: 9781593080334
Author: Charles Dickens
Publisher: Sterling Publishing
Format: Paperback
PublicationDate: 2004-03-25
Language: English
Edition: Illustrated
PageCount: 304
Dimensions: 5.19 x 0.76 x 8.0 inches
Weight: 8.96 ounces
From Katherine Kroeber Wiley's Introduction toA Christmas Carol, The Chimes, and The Cricket on the Hearth"Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that." Thus begins Dickens's most famous and yet poorly understood work. It does not start with a description of Scrooge as a miser, but with death. All of Dickens's Christmas books revolve around death. Americans and Europeans of the twenty-first century are fairly sheltered from death—it seldom happens in our homes, for instance; we can bring people back from the brink of death in ways inconceivable to Victorians; we have powerful drugs to ease the pain of, say, cancer, and so forth. In Dickens's day, one could die from an infected cut; today we simply slap on some antibiotic ointment and feel confident we'll be all right. Death was very present and very haunting to the Victorians. Children and women were particularly vulnerable; we may find some of the sentiment over Tiny Tim cloying, but through him Dickens strove to present the special poignancy of the deaths of children.Having started with Marley's death, and Scrooge's full knowledge and experience of it, Dickens goes on to say that Scrooge never painted over Marley's name on the warehouse door: "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." Dickens then presents Scrooge's miserliness, but he first presents Scrooge as so far astray he no longer even possesses a true sense of self. Scrooge is not a person, even to himself, but a business. It is that lack of self that leads to his miserliness and his alienation from humanity.The theme of blindness or deliberate obtuseness, important inThe Cricket on the HearthandThe Chimes, appears quite early inA Christmas Carol. Scrooge's nephew, in bursting in upon him, precipitates Scrooge's well-known contemptuous remarks upon Christmas. Upon the nephew's departure two "portly gentlemen" approach; they are setting up a fund to "buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth." Scrooge inquires of them as to the state of the prisons, workhouses, the treadmill, and the Poor Law. Prisons and workhouses alike were dreadful places, dank and dark, in which families could not live together but were divided up by gender and age. The treadmills, invented in 1818 originally were actual engines, designed to power mills that ground corn and the like; various laws dealing with the poor established the presence of treadmills in the workhouses. By Dickens's time, however, the treadmills were merely objects in which the poor could be simultaneously contained and worked into exhaustion; no product resulted but the further degradation of the workers. The Poor Law of 1834 divided the poor into the "deserving" and the "undeserving." The "help" provided to the deserving was scant indeed, more theory than fact, and it was almost impossible to prove one was deserving. The decision truly rested with people who sat on the boards of directors of workhouses or other persons living in comfort that was derived from profits expanded, in part, by paying out only very little to help those in need. Whatever its intention, the Poor Law provided a mere facade of welfare; in fact, it was a series of impossible obstacles.The portly gentlemen point out to Scrooge that prisons and workhouses "scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body"—Dickens presumes that Christianity declares that all people are entitled to cheer of mind, not merely a life of subsistence-and that "many can't go there; and many would rather die.""If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides—excuse me—I don't know that.""But you might know it," observed the gentleman."It's not my business," Scrooge returned.There it is, that claim to ignorance—only in this instance the illusion is punctured straight away by the two gentlemen who have made it their business to look about them and perceive the suffering of the world. Scrooge can only not know it by deliberate intent.

Books - New and Used

The following guidelines apply to books:

  • New: A brand-new copy with cover and original protective wrapping intact. Books with markings of any kind on the cover or pages, books marked as "Bargain" or "Remainder," or with any other labels attached, may not be listed as New condition.
  • Used - Good: All pages and cover are intact (including the dust cover, if applicable). Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May include "From the library of" labels. Shrink wrap, dust covers, or boxed set case may be missing. Item may be missing bundled media.
  • Used - Acceptable: All pages and the cover are intact, but shrink wrap, dust covers, or boxed set case may be missing. Pages may include limited notes, highlighting, or minor water damage but the text is readable. Item may but the dust cover may be missing. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting, but the text cannot be obscured or unreadable.

Note: Some electronic material access codes are valid only for one user. For this reason, used books, including books listed in the Used – Like New condition, may not come with functional electronic material access codes.

Shipping Fees

  • Stevens Books offers FREE SHIPPING everywhere in the United States for ALL non-book orders, and $3.99 for each book.
  • Packages are shipped from Monday to Friday.
  • No additional fees and charges.

Delivery Times

The usual time for processing an order is 24 hours (1 business day), but may vary depending on the availability of products ordered. This period excludes delivery times, which depend on your geographic location.

Estimated delivery times:

  • Standard Shipping: 5-8 business days
  • Expedited Shipping: 3-5 business days

Shipping method varies depending on what is being shipped.  

Tracking
All orders are shipped with a tracking number. Once your order has left our warehouse, a confirmation e-mail with a tracking number will be sent to you. You will be able to track your package at all times. 

Damaged Parcel
If your package has been delivered in a PO Box, please note that we are not responsible for any damage that may result (consequences of extreme temperatures, theft, etc.). 

If you have any questions regarding shipping or want to know about the status of an order, please contact us or email to support@stevensbooks.com.

You may return most items within 30 days of delivery for a full refund.

To be eligible for a return, your item must be unused and in the same condition that you received it. It must also be in the original packaging.

Several types of goods are exempt from being returned. Perishable goods such as food, flowers, newspapers or magazines cannot be returned. We also do not accept products that are intimate or sanitary goods, hazardous materials, or flammable liquids or gases.

Additional non-returnable items:

  • Gift cards
  • Downloadable software products
  • Some health and personal care items

To complete your return, we require a tracking number, which shows the items which you already returned to us.
There are certain situations where only partial refunds are granted (if applicable)

  • Book with obvious signs of use
  • CD, DVD, VHS tape, software, video game, cassette tape, or vinyl record that has been opened
  • Any item not in its original condition, is damaged or missing parts for reasons not due to our error
  • Any item that is returned more than 30 days after delivery

Items returned to us as a result of our error will receive a full refund,some returns may be subject to a restocking fee of 7% of the total item price, please contact a customer care team member to see if your return is subject. Returns that arrived on time and were as described are subject to a restocking fee.

Items returned to us that were not the result of our error, including items returned to us due to an invalid or incomplete address, will be refunded the original item price less our standard restocking fees.

If the item is returned to us for any of the following reasons, a 15% restocking fee will be applied to your refund total and you will be asked to pay for return shipping:

  • Item(s) no longer needed or wanted.
  • Item(s) returned to us due to an invalid or incomplete address.
  • Item(s) returned to us that were not a result of our error.

You should expect to receive your refund within four weeks of giving your package to the return shipper, however, in many cases you will receive a refund more quickly. This time period includes the transit time for us to receive your return from the shipper (5 to 10 business days), the time it takes us to process your return once we receive it (3 to 5 business days), and the time it takes your bank to process our refund request (5 to 10 business days).

If you need to return an item, please Contact Us with your order number and details about the product you would like to return. We will respond quickly with instructions for how to return items from your order.


Shipping Cost


We'll pay the return shipping costs if the return is a result of our error (you received an incorrect or defective item, etc.). In other cases, you will be responsible for paying for your own shipping costs for returning your item. Shipping costs are non-refundable. If you receive a refund, the cost of return shipping will be deducted from your refund.

Depending on where you live, the time it may take for your exchanged product to reach you, may vary.

If you are shipping an item over $75, you should consider using a trackable shipping service or purchasing shipping insurance. We don’t guarantee that we will receive your returned item.

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