Review: Mr. Dickens and His Carol: A Novel

Mr. Dickens and His Carol: A Novel by Samantha Silva
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Charles Dickens, the inimitable Boz. He was a celebrity in his own right as an author in Victorian London. He was the author of over a dozen books, one of his most famous being A Christmas Carol. Samantha Silva imagines what Dickens' life was like at the time of his writing of A Christmas Carol in the weeks leading up to Christmas in 1843. He was facing some financial difficulties due to poor sales of Martin Chuzzlewit and the pressures that his family had put on him. He had a few weeks to author a book to pull him out of his situation and regain the readership he was losing. Silva pulls Dickens into his own story, full of charming characters, a ghost to show him his past, present, and future, and the chance at redemption on Christmas day.

This was a cute, short read that brings the reader into the setting of A Christmas Carol. It is very much a work of fiction with some fact sprinkled throughout. I love historical fiction but when it becomes more fiction based "very loosely" on fact, I start to get disinterested. I was hoping for a bit more facts than was provided. The beginning grabbed me, the middle bored me a bit, but the end made up for the lull. Certainly, not my favorite Christmas read but I am glad I read it, as it caused me to do a little research into the life of Charles Dickens and the story behind the famous book. I mostly enjoyed the story of Timothy "Tiny Tim" and hope that there was a sweet boy that truly inspired that character.

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