Why write another adaptation?

(Foreword from the original publication Scrooge & Marley)

As a child, I used to skip these, unless they were part of the assignment. I was certain that if the author wanted this information to be inclusive of the story, they would have, in fact, included it in the story. However, in this case - and please give me the opportunity to surprise you - I could not.

      “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens was the first of his works I read. I was in fourth or fifth grade, likely around ten years old. (unsuccessfully, I tried A Tale of Two Cities next but found it a little out of reach). However, “A Christmas Carol” was easy. I had watched many film adaptations; from animated to absurd (highly recommend Scrooge from 1975 a musical version with Albert Finney and Alec Guinness, or perhaps Scrooged starring Bill Murray) the story was easy to follow.

      As much as I love the story, and I love the message of being good to others, there was always a piece of the story that never seemed to fit.

      Then I watched a version the television channel FX aired. Dark and macabre, with Guy Pierce as our anti-hero. At one point he laments the death of Jacob Marley. The sorrow in his face and tone snapped into place what I had been missing, what had always bothered me. What was in it for Marley? If they were just business partners, and he was doomed to an eternity in chains, would he offer Scrooge a chance at redemption? Unless they were more intimately involved.

      In Victorian England, in the 1840s - when the story is set and was written - it was a crime punishable by death for two men to have sexual relations.  James Pratt and John Smith were the last two men to be executed for buggery in England1. They were hanged on Nov 27th, 1835, outside of the Newgate prison. The man who knew of their relations, William Bonill, was found guilty as an accessory to the crime and sent to Australia, then a penal colony of Great Britain, to live the rest of his natural life. All of their assets went to the crown, Queen Victoria at the time, or “Old Vic” her commoner nickname. 

      In 1835, years before the publishing of some of his enduring masterpieces and 8 years before writing “A Christmas Carol”, Dickens was an unknown journalist. One of his first piece of regular work, was a serial originally titled “Sketches by Boz”. These were published in a periodical throughout the late 1830s and later collected into an anthology known as The Pickwick Papers. Dickens used these writings to highlight the cruel conditions many people were subjected to in England. One of the accounts titled, “A Visit to Newgate,”1 chronicled a tour of the famous Newgate Prison in London; the same prison where James Pratt and John Smith were detained.

      At a point in the entry, Dickens writes about “two men who had been found guilty of crimes that prevented them from being housed with the other inmates,” but doesn’t explicitly state which crime.       

      “No plea could be urged in extenuation of their crime, and they well knew that for them there was no hope in this world...The two short ones,’ the turnkey whispered, ‘were dead men.’...These two men were executed shortly afterwards.”

      We know Dickens had sympathy for those less fortunate, those who were cast to the sidelines of society; take for example, his affection for Tiny Tim. Could it be possible Dickens saw the conviction and execution of these men as unjust? As a writer, he may have even concocted a story to save them from the hangman’s noose.

      They would have to be secretive. They would have to be wealthy enough to secure their privacy and keep everyone they knew at arm’s length. Anyone associated was either a witness that could turn them in, or a conspirator that could meet a similar fate. It would be easy to imagine a widower of a secret relationship descending into despair and pushing society and all humanity away, fearing everyone was a potential extortionist. 

      Dickens wrote the novella “A Christmas Carol” over a six-week period starting in October of 18433. I would feel foolish if I were trying to say that rather than write a Christmas cautionary tale, Dickens intended to tell a story calling for social justice and reform; and yet, isn’t that one of the messages from every adaptation and retelling?

Therefore, please consider (and enjoy) my attempt to re-imagine this beloved story to answer a question the original doesn’t completely answer.