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查爾斯·狄更斯在1843年創作了小說《圣誕頌歌》，部分原因是英國城市窮苦人家的生活狀況讓他感到震驚，特別是在他于當年9月走訪了為倫敦貧民區兒童建立的所謂貧民兒童免費學校之后。不過，寫這部小說的另一部分原因是他需要錢。狄更斯的第六部小說《馬丁·翟述偉》賣的不好，親戚們紛紛上門借錢，房租也讓他感到力不從心——幾年前狄更斯和家人搬進了倫敦的一所大房子。

狄更斯只用了六周就完成了創作，錢也隨之而來。《耶誕鬼故事，一首以散文寫出的圣誕頌歌》于當年12月17日出版，首批印制的6000本小說在平安夜前銷售一空。幾周之內，倫敦就出現了八臺《圣誕頌歌》改編戲劇同時上演的情景，只是其中七臺都沒有獲得授權。盜版書也四處流行。《圣誕頌歌》成了熱門小說，也讓狄更斯得以支付賬單，但如果是在嚴格執行版權法的時代，這本小說或許能帶來更多財富。

第二年狄更斯故技重施，又寫了一本圣誕主題的中篇小說《古教堂的鐘聲》。1845年他創作了《爐邊蟋蟀》，1846年推出了《人生的戰斗》。休息一年后，他在1848年又寫了一本圣誕小說《著魔的人》。

從商業角度講，這些書都很成功——每本書問世第一年的銷量都達到或超過了《圣誕頌歌》的水平。不過，批評人士至少開始對這類書感到厭倦了，《著魔的人》引發了很多吐槽：

再多出幾本圣誕節作品，狄更斯先生就會毀了自己的小說家名聲。我們衷心建議他放過12月25號，轉向4月1號。

狄更斯聽出了弦外之音，而且他已經在忙著寫《大衛·科波菲爾》了。圣誕系列就此止步。不過狄更斯很快創辦了雜志《家常話》，而后又創辦了《一年四季》，這兩本雜志每年都會出版一期圣誕特刊。他還找到了另一條利用《圣誕頌歌》熱的途徑，那就是對這本書進行戲劇式朗誦。最初幾次他把朗誦所得用在了慈善上，但從1858年開始，他把朗誦變成了創收渠道和創作方式。演員兼歷史學家西蒙·卡洛寫道，狄更斯仔細排練的《圣誕頌歌》等圣誕小說以及他較長的小說中的片段成了“當時精彩的戲劇享受，在英國和美國都是如此”。

《圣誕頌歌》一直在給人們帶來多重享受，有書籍，有戲劇，甚至是每個假日季都會上演的音樂會。2017年還改編成了一部相當不錯的電影《圣誕節發明家》。他的其他幾部圣誕小說則已銷聲匿跡，在英語圈狄更斯熱的“包容”之下瀕臨絕跡。我最后一次聽到它們的名字是在2017年1月，當時我偶然發現了紐約摩根圖書館與博物館即將閉幕的《查爾斯·狄更斯和圣誕精神展》。它展示了這五本書的手稿，也成了上述大多數信息的來源。我也因為這次展覽而去讀了《圣誕頌歌》之后的四部小說。

這幾本書并不像常見的狄更斯小說那樣讓讀者覺得收獲頗豐。對此，薩塞克斯大學英語學者塞德里克·沃茨在Wordsworth Classics圣誕系列叢書的序言中有過精妙論述：“本叢書所選作品參差不齊，對欣賞狄更斯寫作技巧的人來說是個考驗。”人們當然欣賞《圣誕頌歌》的節奏、清晰及其對幽默、悲傷和恐懼的均衡把握。這本書開門見山地說：“首先，馬利死了。”其續作《古教堂的鐘聲》的第一句話則用了83個詞。

四部后續作品中有三部以超自然干預為題材，而且至少參雜了一些社會評論。在《古教堂的鐘聲》中，紳士和政客們當面和背后對窮人說的話都很難聽，可以說其表現甚至比《圣誕頌歌》的主人公還糟糕。它們和圣誕節的關聯度也遠不如《圣誕頌歌》。《古教堂的鐘聲》和《爐邊蟋蟀》中的關鍵節日是新年，《著魔的人》結尾處的圣誕晚餐感覺像是一場反思。我最喜歡的是《人生的戰斗》，它沒有提到幽靈，也沒有社會評論，只有和節日的一絲聯系（或者具體到這本書來說，是和戰斗的聯系），但其中的人物很有魅力，他們在書中有施展空間，另外故事情節雖然一目了然，但一直不能完全猜透，直到看到那個出人意料又令人滿足的結局。但在這四本書里，《人生的戰斗》收到了一些最不好的評價，所以我的觀點可能不足為憑。

2017年，《查爾斯·狄更斯和圣誕精神展》的組織者迪克蘭·凱利現在是紐約公共圖書館特別選集和展覽部門負責人。上述四本小說中他最喜歡《古教堂的鐘聲》，但整體來說他覺得短篇小說真的不適合狄更斯發揮才能。凱利在電子郵件中表示，后來刊登在兩本雜志上的故事要好得多，比如《一年四季》1866年圣誕特刊中的《信號員》。我之前還看到有人稱贊發表于1867年圣誕節的《禁止通行》，這是狄更斯和推理小說先驅威爾基·柯林斯的合著。所以我把兩個故事都看了。（我的工作很棒，對不對？）

《信號員》是一篇精美而短小的鬼故事（凱利還推薦了丹霍姆·艾略特主演的BBC改編電影），但似乎不是發生在冬天。《禁止通行》瘋狂而精彩，長度接近一本書，讓人愛不釋手——它融合了驚悚、愛情以及認錯人的罪犯視角情節。這個故事里確有新年晚餐，但結局發生在春天，而且幾乎沒有狄更斯的那種季節感。

那樣的季節感和冬青樹、葡萄干布丁以及烤鵝等事物有關，但也源于狄更斯在圣誕小說中的深入發掘，就像他曾說過的那樣，是“對家和爐邊的光輝、熱誠、慷慨、歡樂與喜氣的全面寫照”。雖然在一年的其他時間這似乎有些多愁善感，但在12月份寒冷的夜晚可能就是這種感覺。所以大家至少可以知道，如果看了《圣誕頌歌》后覺得還不夠，那么在這個方向上還有其他書可讀。

如果人在紐約，大家還應該知道摩根圖書館與博物館在每個假日季都會展出《圣誕頌歌》手稿——銀行家兼收藏家老約翰·皮爾龐特·摩根在19世紀初買下了這部手稿。紐約公共圖書館則在舉辦圣誕主題狄更斯展，包括《圣誕頌歌》、《爐邊蟋蟀》和《古教堂的鐘聲》的朗誦稿，其書頁空白處還有狄更斯寫的表演注意事項。

柯林斯和狄更斯還把它改編成了戲劇。（財富中文網）

譯者：Charlie

審校：夏林

Charles Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol” in 1843 in part because he was appalled at the living conditions of England’s urban poor, especially after a visit that September to a so-called Ragged School for London slum children. But he also wrote it because he needed money. His sixth novel, “Martin Chuzzlewit,” was not selling well, relatives were hitting him up for loans, and he was having trouble making the rent payments on the big London house he had moved his family into a few years earlier.

The book took Dickens only six weeks to finish, and the money flowed soon after. “A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas” was published Dec. 17, and its first print run of 6,000 copies had sold out by Christmas Eve. Within weeks there were eight different stage adaptations playing in London. Seven were unauthorized, though, and pirated editions of the book circulated widely as well. “A Christmas Carol” was a hit, and it enabled Dickens to pay his bills, but it wasn’t quite the cash cow it would be in an age of strictly enforced copyright laws.

So the next year, Dickens tried to recapture the magic with another Christmas novella, “The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In.” In 1845 he wrote another, “The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home,” and in 1846 yet another, “The Battle of Life: A Love Story.” After a one-year break came 1848’s “The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain.”

As business propositions, the books were successes: Each appears to have sold as many or more copies in its first year as “A Christmas Carol.” Still, the critics at least began to tire of the things, with “The Haunted Man” inspiring this jibe:

Let us now have a few more returns of Christmas, and Mr. Dickens will have destroyed his reputation as a tale-writer. We earnestly recommend him to quit the twenty-fifth of December, and take to the first of April.

Dickens took the hint, and he got busy writing “David Copperfield.” The Christmas books stopped, although Dickens soon started a magazine, first called Household Words and then All the Year Round, that put out a special Christmas issue every year. He also found another way to capitalize on that “Christmas Carol” magic by giving dramatic readings of the book. The first few times he did this the proceeds went to charity, but starting in 1858 Dickens turned to readings as both an income stream and a creative outlet. His carefully rehearsed presentations of “A Christmas Carol,” the other Christmas books and passages from his longer novels became, writes actor/historian Simon Callow, “the great theatrical sensation of the day, both in Britain and in the United States of America.”

“A Christmas Carol” has remained a multimedia sensation, with readings, plays and even musical renditions staged every holiday season, and a pretty good movie on its origins, “The Man Who Invented Christmas,” was released in 2017. The other Christmas books, meanwhile, have faded as close to oblivion as the English-speaking world’s continuing Dickens obsession will allow. I had never heard of them until January 2017, when I stumbled upon an about-to-close exhibit on “Charles Dickens and the Spirit of Christmas” at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. That exhibit, which included the original manuscripts of all five books, was the source of most of the information above. It also inspired me to read the four books that came out after “A Christmas Carol.”

The experience was not quite as rewarding as reading Dickens usually is. As University of Sussex English scholar Cedric Watts delicately puts it in the introduction to the Wordsworth Classics edition of the Christmas books, “The very unevenness of this collection makes it a testing ground for the appreciation of Dickens’s skills as a writer.” It certainly makes one appreciate the pace, clarity and balance of humor, pathos and dread in “A Christmas Carol.” That book crackles from its opening sentence of “Marley was dead, to begin with.” Its followup, “The Chimes,” has a first sentence that goes on for 83 words.

Three of the four successor books feature supernatural interventions and at least a dollop of social commentary, with the gentlemen and politicians who keep saying awful things about and to poor people in “The Chimes” arguably coming off even worse than Ebenezer Scrooge. None has nearly as much to do with Christmas as “A Christmas Carol,” with New Year’s the key holiday in “The Chimes” and “Cricket on the Hearth” and the Christmas dinner at the end of “The Haunted Man” feeling like something of an afterthought. My favorite was “The Battle of Life,” which lacks ghosts, social commentary and all but the faintest link to the holidays (or to battles, for that matter), but it does have appealing characters who are given space to develop, plus a plot twist that you can see coming from a mile away but remains just enough out of focus until the end that it still surprises and satisfies. It gets some of the worst reviews of the lot, though, so maybe you shouldn’t trust me on that.

Declan Kiely, who organized in 2017’s exhibit at the Morgan Library and is now director of special collections and exhibitions at the New York Public Library, likes “The Chimes” the best of the post-“Carol” books but on the whole doesn’t think the short-novel format really suited Dickens’s talents. Much better are the subsequent magazine stories, he said in an email, citing “The Signal-Man,” from the 1866 Christmas issue of All the Year Round. I had also come across an endorsement of Christmas 1867’s “No Thoroughfare,” co-authored with mystery-novel pioneer Wilkie Collins. So I read those two as well. (Do I have a great job, or what?)

“The Signal-Man” is a fine little ghost story (Kiely also recommends the BBC adaptation starring Denholm Elliott) but doesn’t even seem to take place in winter. “No Thoroughfare” is a crazy, wonderful, nearly book-length page-turner — a thriller, love story and mistaken-identity caper all in one. It does feature a New Year’s dinner, but its denouement comes in springtime and there’s little of that seasonal Dickens feel.

That seasonal feel has something to do with holly and plum pudding and roasted goose and such, but it’s also related to Dickens’s mining in the Christmas books of what he once called “a vein of glowing, hearty, generous, mirthful, beaming reference in everything to Home and Fireside.” And while that might come across as sappy at other times of the year, on a cold December evening it can feel just right. So at least be aware that, if “A Christmas Carol” isn’t enough for you, there is more along that general line available.

If you’re in New York, you should also be aware that the original manuscript of “A Christmas Carol,” which banker and collector John Pierpont Morgan Sr. acquired in the late 1800s, is on display at the Morgan Library as it is every holiday season, and that the New York Public Library has on display a sampling of Christmas-related Dickensiana, including the author’s reading copies of “A Christmas Carol,” “The Cricket on the Hearth” and “The Chimes,” with his performance notes in the margins.

Collins and Dickens also wrote it as a play.