Christmas in Fiction Traces American Roots of Holiday Tales
An exploration of Christmas prose from Washington Irving to Thackeray and Dickens, tracing how American writers shaped holiday storytelling. The piece contrasts Irving’s Bracebridge Hall with Thackeray’s Vanity Fair era, notes Dickens’s personal link to ghostly tales, and surveys diverse later Christmas stories by Hawthorne and Mitford, highlighting the blend of realism and mysticism in festive literature.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Charles Dickens
Christ
Dickens
Malta
Nelson
Trabizir
Sir Walter
Abbotsford
United States Legation
England
Washington Irving
Irving
Geoffrey Crayon
John Murray
London
Bracebridge Hall
Thackeray
Master H
Dickene
Nalent Mmapenspat
Harte
Yuletide
Santa Claus
Simpson's
Johony
Hawthorne
Misa Mitford
Mary Russell Mitford
The Rational Christmas and Related Skits
A December vignette on mindful giving stresses reason over lavish gifts and features a couple planning for their child with careful restraint. The piece contrasts frugality with spectacle and includes brief humor sketches about fortune tellers and social manners.
Christmas at Sea Tugged by Old Salt Tales
A harborside gathering hears Cap'n Tuttle recount a Christmas Eve ordeal aboard the Tirzah Ann in the eighties. A gale, frozen decks, sinking ship, and a doomed crew mark a brutal voyage, with the crew only noting that they did not escape. The piece closes with a note on Fifteenth Century HarleianMS superstition about a Sunday Christmas and its grim prophecies for weather, pestilence, and death.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
American Press Association
Harbor Club
Old Hatteras
Tirzab Ann
Greenport
Jack Robinson
Avery
F. H
Slang histories and vivid extracts from Beecher notes
A collage of etymology and anecdotes on slang like pluck and plucky from 1827 Scott journals, Beecher's impromptu interruption, and later reflections on animal instincts and prison life in French penal colonies, interwoven with fragmentary 19th century lines and questions.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Walter Scott
London
Island of Salvation
St. Jean
Also Mentioned on This Page
Mae
Northwestern Land & Loan Co
Stanley County Lands
Stanley County
Philip
Pleasant View Poultry Farm
Jake Weber
S. D. PS
Meade County
Sturgis
Yale
Archie Allen
James A. Quigg
U. S
District of
South Dakota
Pierre and Chamberlain
A. Bennett Lawyer
R. A. Bielski
Lo Vas
Bennett & Bielski
Phillip
So. Dakota
Hargeshe
Placre Dank BR. A Divlaki.Cooks.Vines
Bank of
Madoke
Senate Bue.t
M. L. Fasvalls
Part Pierre, SD
Ellis Fright
Ay American Press Association
Mas
Puck
Detroit Frey
Trackers
British Museum
South Winchester Hotel
A. A. Heinemann
Pioneer Pharmacy
Ss. M. Kyde
North Center Street
A. Bennett
Hargesheimer’s
E. C. Davis
Winchester Hotel
Philip, S. D
E. G. Davis
S. D
Yankton Nursery
Ovchard
Northwest
Gurney
Henry Ward Beecher
Mr. Beecher
York
C. W. Gurney
Yankton, So
Dak
Waddell & Ramsey
A. B
Philip, S. Bd
Atlas Lumber Co
L. A. Kelley
Warner Land Co
F. W. Warner, Pres
So, Dak
A. O. Putnam
THE
Drayman
R. B. Driver
Berg
Berg’s Jewelry Store
Pierre
J. H. Johnson
Hank
Fort Pierre, 8. A
Aldrich & Son
Undertakers
Res Phone
South Dak
Bhoop
Ghoop
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