Just as Clement Moore gave us the definitive Santa Claus in "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (a.k.a. "The Night Before Christmas"), Charles Dickens gave us the definitive Christmas spirit in his simple but charming novella "A Christmas Carol". First published in 1843, this supernatural story of an elderly man's redemption from his mean-spirited, miserly ways takes place in Victorian London, but its universal theme of charity towards our fellow man has endeared this classic to many a generation around the globe. In addition to its priceless role as a morality tale, the book colorfully describes the Yuletide customs practiced in England during the early nineteenth century. This Washington Square Press edition of "A Christmas Carol" is unabridged, yet you can understand why so short a book is yet published in abridged versions, especially for schoolchildren. Not infrequently, Dickens veers from the main story line and goes into tangents of a philosophical or descriptive nature, much like the converser who abruptly changes the subject only to return to it with the familiar "Anyway, ... ". I assume children (and some adults) may find these tangents cumbersome and distracting, but they are still useful in that they reflect Dickens' thoughts while writing the book. It may still be difficult for some of us to think that cold-hearted Christmas-bashers like Ebenezer Scrooge exist, but look at human nature around you, and it will be difficult no more. At a time when "Merry Christmas" is being supplanted by a more vague "Happy Holidays", and the season gives way to coarse behavior and unchecked materialism, "A Christmas Carol" is the perfect guidebook to put things into perspective.

Well, I finally read it (instead of just watching it on the TV screen).

This is what you can call a simple idea, well told. A lonely, bitter old gaffer needs redemption, and thus is visited by three spirits who wish to give him a push in the right direction. You have then a ghost story, a timeslip adventure, and the slow defrosting of old Scrooge's soul. There are certain additions in the more famous filmed versions that help tweak the bare essentials as laid down by Dickens, but really, all the emotional impact and plot development necessary to make it believable that Scrooge is redeemable--and worth redeeming--is brilliantly cozied into place by the great novelist.

The scenes that choke me up the most are in the book; they may not be your favourites. I react very strongly to our very first look at the young Scrooge, sitting alone at school, emotionally abandoned by his father, waiting for his sister to come tell him there may be a happy Christmas. Then there are the various Cratchit scenes, but it is not so much Tiny Tim's appearances or absence that get to me--it's Bob Cratchit's dedication to his ailing son, and his various bits of small talk that either reveal how much he really listens to Tim, or else hide the pain Cratchit is feeling after we witness the family coming to grips with an empty place at the table. Scrooge as Tim's saviour is grandly set up, if only Scrooge can remember the little boy he once was, and start empathizing with the world once again. I especially like all Scrooge's minor epiphanies along his mystical journey; he stops a few times and realizes when he has said the wrong thing to Cratchit, having belittled Bob's low wages and position in life, and only later realizing that he is the miser with his bootheel on Cratchit's back. Plus, he must confront his opposite in business, Fezziwig, who treated his workers so wonderfully, and he watches as true love slips through his fingers again.

It all makes up the perfect Christmas tale, and if anyone can find happiness after having true love slip through his fingers many years ago, surprisingly, it's Scrooge. With the help of several supporting players borrowed from the horror arena, and put to splendid use here.

Master storyteller and social critic, Charles Dickens, turns this social treatise on shortcomings of Victorian society into an entertaining and heartwarming Christmas ghost story which has charmed generations and become an icon of Christmas traditions. Who, in the Western world has not heard, "Bah, Humbug!" And who can forget the now almost hackneyed line of Tiny Tim, "God bless us, every one!" or his cheerfully poignant observation, that he did not mind the stares of strangers in church, for he might thus serve as a reminder of He who made the lame, walk and the blind, see. Several movie versions: musical, animated, updated, or standard; as well as stage productions (I recall the Cleveland Playhouse and McCarter Theatre`s with fondess.) have brought the wonderful characterizations to the screen, as well as to life. This story of the redemption of the bitter and spiritually poor miser, and the book itself; however, is a timeless treasure whose richness, like Mrs Cratchit`s Christmas pudding, is one that no production can hope to fully capture.

This book is poorly written. That does not mean it is not a great story--it's just not a great novel. The Wizard of Oz is written in a very conversational style; it often does not flow, as if Baum were pausing to collect his thoughts or remember exactly how he last described the Wicked Witch. I think it is meant to be read aloud to a child or else you are missing something. I feel that the pauses and the stops and starts probably have more impact on a small child trying to fight off sleep with a wonderful tale than they do on a grown woman finally checking The Wizard of Oz off her "Things I Always Wanted to Read" list.
Please don't misunderstand, I enjoyed the story of The Wizard of Oz, and I think everyone should read it, especially those who enjoyed the movie. There is much more to it than the movie, many more adventures, more explanation, and more sarcasm and social criticism. There just isn't much more literary merit.

I bought this book years ago and am looking for another copy as a gift. This edition is the entire MGM script (including the lyrics to the songs) of the 1939 movie and is is wonderfully illustrated with stills from the movie. My family has practically worn out this oversized book and we need another! My husband recently witnessed my daughter's new boyfriend reading along as they watched the movie because he knew we were just fans and he had better catch up! Our families favorite book!

Here's a trivia question for you. When Dorothy killed the Wicked Witch of the West by dropping her house on the witch, was the witch wearing (a) ruby slippers? (b) silver shoes? (c) both?

If you answered "both," you have the correct answer. L. Frank Baum's original story (found in this book) has magical silver shoes in it. The movie version of the story, starring Judy Garland as Dorothy, had ruby slippers. Why the change? Well, ruby slippers film much better. So the Wicked Witch of the West wore both types of footwear, depending on whether you are reading the book or watching the movie.

I share that example with you because 9 people out of 10 have seen the movie, but never read the book. When I was a wee lad, I started in the opposite direction and was sorry to see how much of the Oz story was left out in the movie.

Now, you can make up for lost time by reading or rereading the original. I commend it to you for three primary reasons. First, the book version is built around the idea that the different parts of Oz cannot be easily traversed and the ensuing travel complications make for a better plot. Second, there are many more types of imaginative creatures in the book than in the movie. Third, the book has been lovingly enhanced by new illustrations done in turn of the 20th century style by Michael Hague. The illustrations encompass styles from immediately post van Gogh (yes, there are sunflowers) through Art Deco. I especially liked the water colors of gloomy and darkening skies.

If you are like me, you will chortle when you read L. Frank Baum's comment in the beginning that the story was "written solely to please children . . . a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained . . ." while the scary parts are left out. If you remember frightening moments, you are thinking about the movie. The book is much more gentle, which makes it more suitable for the youngsters. Yes, there are frightening villains, but they are quickly dispatched rather than being allowed to hang around to menace and frighten children just before bedtime. Still, children must have been braver in those days. This story is still scary enough for most to feel a deathly chill now and then.

Many of the ambiguities and confusing aspects of the movie are clearer and less disconcerting in the book, as well.

I won't go into a fine comparison of the two, because that will just spoil the plot for you. Do let me mention a few chapters that you will not recognize from the movie . . . just to whet your appetite for the book -- Away to the South, Attacked by the Fighting Trees, The Dainty China Country, and The Country of the Quadlings.

After you have finished enjoying the wonderful story and new illustrations, think about some of the lessons of the book. Notice that by teaming up, Dorothy and her friends could combine strengths to overcome individual weaknesses. This is the ultimate group of superheroes. How can you combine your talents with others so that all of you combined can accomplish vastly more than any one of you can individually?

Stay on the Yellow Brick Road with effective allies!

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a classical story about a girl and her dog that get trapped in a twister. She wakes up in a magical land and asks how she can get home. They tell her she has to follow the yellow brick road. She meets people on her way to the Wizard. The Scarecrow needs brains, the Tinman needs a heart, the Lion needs courage and Dorothy needs to go home. They meet strange things on the way to The Good Witch of the South. I like the book because it's interesting and exciting and that's why I think you should read it.

The Wizard of Oz is about a girl named Dorothy who is a farm girl from Kansas. One day Dorothy is carried away by a cyclone to a magical land called Oz. While she is there she meets a tlaking scarecrow, a man made of tin, and a cowardly lion afraid of his own shadow. Dorothy and her friends follow a yellow brick road to the Emerald City where they hope to find the famous wizard that can grant each of their wishes. But the wicked witch keeps trying to ruin their trip to the Emerald City.
The setting of the book is in a magicla land full of little people called Munchkins, flying monkeys, and a wicked witch that will melt if touched with water. The characters have their separate reasons for wanting to see the wizard. As the story goes on, the reader can not help but fall in love with them.
The text gives great detail as to what everything looks like and with those details the whole world of Oz can come to life in the readers imagination.

The Wizard of Oz written by L. Frank Baum is a wonderful book about a young girl who goes on an adventure full of excitement and fun. Dorothy the main character lives on a small country farm in Kansas with her Aunt, Uncle, and small dog, Toto. One day a twister comes over their country farm and whisks Dorothy along with her little dog away to a make believe land called Oz. There she is greeted by the people who live there. She asks them how she can get home to Kansas. They tell her that the Great Oz will help get her home. But before she heads on her way to Oz the Good Witch of the North kisses her on the forehead and says that with that kiss no one can harm her. So she and Toto head on their way to Oz. On her way she meets The Scarecrow who wants a brain, a Woodman made of tin who wants a heart and a Cowardly Lion who wants courage. These four new friends eimbark on an adventure to the great city of Oz. Will they all get their wishes? Find out when you read the Wizard of Oz. I loved this book because not only did it have fantasy but it is a great book for all ages. I recomend it to anyone who loved being a child.

Good for spurring conversation: also provided a 'neutral' source for child to review & discover. Our daughter has spent additional time with text to reinforce the conversation.

When looking at books to read with my child, I was worried that some would go too far, but some would not go far enough. This book is very direct, explanatory, and complete. It covers issues of both genders, which is so important as adolescents try to understand what everyone else is going through. The illustrations are complete, but not overly, and the topic of sexuality is explained in a way that actually inspires a values conversation as a next step. This book was a really healthy read for us with our child, and I plan to use it with our younger children when the time comes. My mother actually read it with me also!

This unabriged editon of the 100 year old story is WONDERFUL. Denslow's art was made for the story---you can't seperate 'em, but this artist did and rather critizing it like the other artist's picutres, I really enjoyed it! Charles illustrates like you are really there. HIGHLY recommended.

We gave this to our 4.5-year-old son for Christmas this year, and have been reading it over and over every since. The illustrations are spectacular, and the story is so beautifully extracted that -- especially with this audience -- it doesn't seem lacking at all. We are enjoying it to the hilt and plan to buy copies as gifts for other kids his age.

This book has useful (though not terribly complete) introductions to each of the plays, focusing mainly on comparing various Folio and Quarto editions of the plays. It also contains some nice pictures, though I wish the Latin in them were translated or shown at a legible size. It has very nice appendicies nothing the first appearances of all the characters in the plays, and a timeline showing what historical events were occuring in relation to works written by Shakespeare and events in his life, as well as to plays by other playwrights and other literature produced at that time. The pages are relatively thin and the print small. However (this referes to the '74 edition, maybe they have changed it since then) the plays are a royal pain to read. The pages are about a foot high and the notes are at the bottom. There is no marking to indicate whether a line has a note, so the reader must read a line or two, glance down at the notes, read another few lines, look at the notes again, and so on. Were it not for this major annoyance, this would be a very good (and very complete) edition of Shakespeare's works.

This one-volume edition of Shakespeare's works is the most complete I found on the market: it includes "The Two Noble Kinsmen", Shakespeare's addition to "Sir Thomas More" (with photographical reproduction of the pages believed to be in his handwrite), the currently hot debated poem "A Funeral Elegy by W. S." and, above all, "The Reign of King Edward III", a new play recently accepted in the canon by many authoritative editors (Arden, Cambridge, Oxford). The text of each work is carefully edited and accompanied by helpful glossarial notes, a textual discussion with short bibliography, and an impressive collation which allows the reader to find variant readings and emendations. An exhaustive critical introduction precedes each play and poem, dealing with authorship, date, sources, textual differences between quarto and folio texts, and of course the principal thematic issues. What makes this a superb edition - and indeed a real "companion" to Shakespeare studies! - is the great amount of subsidiary material, including a general introduction - focusing on Shakespeare's life, art, language, style, and on the Elizabethan historical and theatrical background - and a series of useful essays on various themes: critical approaches to the plays and poems, philological issues, history of the plays on the stage, television and cinema. There are also many interesting documents, synoptic tables, glossaries, indexes, illustrated tables (both coloured and b&w) , the reproduction of the introductory pages of the First Folio of 1623, and a rich bibliography. I personally consider this book a must have for every teacher, scholar, or simply amateur of the greatest of all poets. Buy it!

While I sympathize somewhat with the review below -- the introductions do quibble a bit over the differences between Folio and Quarto versions, the exact source material etc. -- I found this to be an excellent version of the complete works. The essay before each play is very helpful toward understanding the literary context of the play--they _do_ talk about the characters and the action of the play, in a way that nicely complements the text. The illustrations (some black and white, some color) are also interesting and helpful. The book contains both a general introduction, which is accessible, if slightly daunting, to a reader who might not be intimately familiar with all of the plays, serving to excite interest at least. It also contains an essay on 20th century Shakespeare criticism, which introduces many of the newer movements in Shakespeare criticism that are not included in the general introduction (which focuses more on the Elizabethan historical period, and more immediate reactions to the plays). The footnotes, while they are not indicated on the line itself, are located on the same page. In looking at several other editions, I found that footnotes were sometimes actually endnotes--i.e. located in one section at the end of the play, which would be very disruptive to reading. Happily, this is not the case in this edition.

The book, as the title claims, includes all of Shakespeare's plays, Sonnets, and poems. The appendices include many other interesting tidbits that help shine some light on old Billy's life, including his will, in which he enigmatically bequeathed a "second-best bed" to his wife. Other documents are included, often with explanations to help the reader to understand (as the documents are printed verbatim, the Elizabethan spelling and punctuation is a slight impediment).

Overall, I found this to be the best of the paperback and hardcover editions I examined.

This book was headed for the discard pile even though I'm a ghost story junkie, but then I found a trio of really good stories buried within the dross of old pulp filler:

"Stillwater, 1896" by Michael Cassutt - A Great Lakes lumber town is visited by a man who can locate corpses underwater.

"One of the Dead" by William Wood - A vacant lot is purchased very cheaply in a canyon inhabited by movie stars, and haunted by its Spanish past.

"Night-Side" by Joyce Carol Oates - Two skeptics test a medium who can speak with the voices of the dead. The really chilling aspect of this story is its author's depiction of the afterlife.

There are also some decent stories that are worth a once-over:

"Drawer 14" by Talmage Powell - A morgue attendant sees a corpse in a drawer that's supposed to be empty. This story has a kicker at the end.

"Professor Kate" by Margaret St. Clair - A family of witches is hunted by a posse in Indian Country.

"School for the Unspeakable" by Manly Wade Wellman - You will soon guess what is going to happen to the new boy at the prep school, but it's still a spooky read. I'm prepared to bet money that the author originally set this story in England, but the editors changed the location to North Dakota to fit it into this collection.

"Clay-Shuttered Doors" by Helen R. Hull - A woman returns from the dead to host her husband's dinner party.

"Poor Little Saturday" by Madeleine L'Engle - An original fantasy, but more about witches than ghosts--I think. A woman in a deserted, boarded-up plantation house befriends a boy with malaria.

"Great American Ghost Stories" also features a so-so story by Harlan Ellison--"Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes"--I think he was feeling sorry for himself when he wrote it; and a really awful early Lovecraft: "Herbert West - Reanimator." When Lovecraft is bad, he is really, really bad and this story's got sentences like, "Not more unutterable could have been the chaos of hellish sound if the pit itself had opened to release the agony of the damned, for in one inconceivable cacophony was centered all the supernal terror and unnatural despair of animate nature."

Yes, indeed. Most of the stories in this book have never been anthologized, as far as I can determine, except for a duet by Ambrose Bierce: "The Boarded Window;" and "The Stranger." But the editors could hardly have called their book, "Great American Ghost Stories" without an entry from the man who defined 'happiness' as, "an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another."

Herein lies a fine collection of Ghost Stories. And it's not a barrage of cheesy tales of moans and groans in the attic. I devoured this book of shorts in one sitting. It kept my toes curled all night. Highly recommended! (Mary Higgins Clark's short story sets off the book in fine style, being the first in line) Loved it!!!

The Confederate fighting man is the subject of these 11 very touching short stories written by the likes of F.Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe. You don't have to be a Civil War fanatic or a Southerner to appreciate this book. You only have to love a well crafted story

I found this book in City Lights ... on my own quest around sacred mountains of the world. It was fun to find Evans-Wentz had anticpated much of my route ... many years before. Cuchama is also Mt Tecate, a mountain on which young American Indians were set to spend the night, coming down with their vocation in life. Well edited by Frank Waters, with what were to me fascinating additional observations. A great intro to the phenomenon of the sacredness of mountians, from a man who lived his life by such things.