A Christmas Carol – 1939- Dicken Radio plays

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December 12, 2006 03:58PM
A Christmas Carol (full title: A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas) is Charles Dickens’ “little Christmas Book” first published on December 19,] 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. The story met with instant success, selling six thousand copies within a week. Originally written as a potboiler to enable Dickens to pay off a debt, the tale has become one of the most popular and enduring Christmas stories of all time. In fact, contemporaries of the time noted that the popularity of the story played a critical role in redefining the importance of Christmas and the major sentiments associated with the holiday. Few modern readers realize that A Christmas Carol was written during a time of decline in the old Christmas traditions. “If Christmas, with its ancient and hospitable customs, its social and charitable observances, were in danger of decay, this is the book that would give them a new lease,” said English poet Thomas Hood in his review in Hood’s Magazine and Comic Review (January 1844, page 68).

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Technorati Profile

Crosby’s biggest musical hit was his recording of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” which he introduced through a 1941 Christmas-season radio broadcast and the movie Holiday Inn. Bing’s recording hit the charts on 3 October 1942, and rose to #1 on 31 October, where it stayed for 11 weeks. In the following years Bing’s recording hit the top-30 pop charts another 16 times, even topping the charts again in 1945 and January of ’47. The song remains Bing’s best-selling recording, and the best-selling single and best selling song of all time . In 1998 after a long absence, his 1947 version hit the charts in Britain, and as of 2006 remains the North American holiday-season standard. According to Guinness World Records, Bing Crosby’s White Christmas has “sold over 100 million copies around the world, with at least 50 million sales as singles.”

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