Great books I have read

[Francisco]

A Christmas Carol..Great novel...spawned many great plays, and fllms...it is how the British wish Christmas was really like..in Georgian times, when there was snow, galleon windows, horses and carts, ladies in crinolines, gentlemen in top hats smoking clay pipes in inns with roaring log fires and jugs of porter.

One great film was made near me in Shrewsbury...and there is still a gravestone in a churchyard bearing the name Ebenezer Scrooge!
You could actually believe it is the real one.....spooky....

[freddo]

He was based on a real person as most of Dickens characters were
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/ ... 4cc55a1450

[Brandyboy]

He was based on a real person as most of Dickens characters were
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/ ... 4cc55a1450

You have to subscribe to read the full article and although I`m full of Christmas spirit ... I`m too tight ( excuse the pun ) like Ebenezer Scrooge, to pay for it.

So what does it say

[freddo]

Several theories have been put forward as to where Dickens got inspiration for the character.

Ebenezer Scroggie, a banker from Edinburgh who won a catering contract for King George IV's visit to Scotland. He was buried in Canongate Kirkyard, with a gravestone that is now lost. The theory is that Dickens noticed the gravestone that described Scroggie as being a "meal man" (corn merchant) but misread it as "mean man".[1][2] This theory has been described as "a probable Dickens hoax" for which "[n]o one could find any corroborating evidence".[3]
It has been suggested that he chose the name Ebenezer ("stone (of) help") to reflect the help given to Scrooge to change his life.[4]
The surname may be from the now obscure English verb scrouge, meaning "squeeze" or "press".[5][6]
One school of thought is that Dickens based Scrooge's views on the poor on those of demographer and political economist Thomas Malthus.[7][8]
Another is that the minor character Gabriel Grub from The Pickwick Papers was worked up into a more mature characterization (his name stemming from an infamous Dutch miser, Gabriel de Graaf).[9][10]
Jemmy Wood, owner of the Gloucester Old Bank and possibly Britain's first millionaire, was nationally renowned for his stinginess, and may have been another.[11]
The man whom Dickens eventually mentions in his letters[12] and who strongly resembles the character portrayed by Dickens's illustrator, John Leech, was a noted British eccentric and miser named John Elwes (1714–1789).
Kelly writes that Scrooge may have been influenced by Dickens's conflicting feelings for his father, whom he both loved and demonised. This psychological conflict may be responsible for the two radically different Scrooges in the tale—one a cold, stingy and greedy semi-recluse, the other a benevolent, sociable man.[13] Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, a professor of English literature, considers that in the opening part of the book covering young Scrooge's lonely and unhappy childhood, and his aspiration for money to avoid poverty "is something of a self-parody of Dickens's fears about himself"; the post-transformation parts of the book are how Dickens optimistically sees himself.[14]

Scrooge could also be based on two misers: the eccentric John Elwes, MP,[15] or Jemmy Wood, the owner of the Gloucester Old Bank who was also known as "The Gloucester Miser".[16] According to the sociologist Frank W. Elwell, Scrooge's views on the poor are a reflection of those of the demographer and political economist Thomas Malthus,[17] while the miser's questions "Are there no prisons? ... And the Union workhouses? ... The treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" are a reflection of a sarcastic question raised by the reactionary philosopher Thomas Carlyle, "Are there not treadmills, gibbets; even hospitals, poor-rates, New Poor-Law?"[18][n 1]

There are literary precursors for Scrooge in Dickens's own works. Peter Ackroyd, Dickens's biographer, sees similarities between Scrooge and the elder Martin Chuzzlewit character, although the miser is "a more fantastic image" than the Chuzzlewit patriarch; Ackroyd observes that Chuzzlewit's transformation to a charitable figure is a parallel to that of the miser.[20] Douglas-Fairhurst sees that the minor character Gabriel Grub from The Pickwick Papers was also an influence when creating Scrooge.[21][n 2]
copied from Wiki

[freddo]

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/12/ ... spiration/

[Brandyboy]

Thank you Fred.

[freddo]

My favourites are by Wilbur Smith when I read his books I feel as though I am back in Africa
Other authors I enjoy are Conn Iggulden he writes about the rise of Genghis Khan and The Roman Empire very absorbing stories

[Francisco]

Haven't read any Wilbur Smith...yet!
Don't seem to have the time with all the biographies and autobiographies to get through.
Just started one by A Urquart called the Forgotten Highlander. Its about his capture in Singapore and subsequent horrors working on the Railway of Death.His digestive system was so ravaged that even today he struggles with food and still craves just a bowl of rice!
Digressing, as a teenager, I read a series of books by a man working in the British Raj, who moonlighted as a hunter of man eating tigers and leopards in Rural India.Kenneth Anderson was the Author, and I found his,usually night time and alone,encounters with these beasts to be grippingly fearsome.

[Brandyboy]

Do any of you guys use a Kindle.
I know you can`t beat the feel and smell of good book ( much like a good woman ) but a Kindle is much more convenient and you can get so many good books for so little money on Amazon and sometimes free as well.

[Francisco]

I find a kindle awkward to hold while reading in bed, whereas with a book it is easily balanced with your thumb in the middle crease between the pages.
Kindle is fine on a desk or table ....