Legal Research

Grafting A Christmas Carol: Dickens v. Lee (1844)

From Michael Hancher, Professor of English in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of MN, comes news of this article, timely for the season:

?Grafting A Christmas Carol?
Michael Hancher
SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, Volume 48, Number 4, Autumn 2008, pp. 813-827
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Abstract: The piracy of A Christmas Carol that provoked Charles Dickens to sue (at considerable cost) for copyright damages in the Court of Chancery appeared as a two-penny issue of an ephemeral magazine called Parley?s Illuminated Library. Although it was long thought to be lost, this pastiche survives in a bound volume of that journal among other quoted and ?reoriginated? works. This essay characterizes the unusual textual mixtures that make up that volume, and notices especially the hybrid qualities of Dickens?s ?reoriginated? Carol.

Full post as published by LexLibris on December 16, 2008 (boomark / email).