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  • The Paris Review

    The Endurance of A Christmas Carol

    by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst Dec 18, 2018 7 minutes

    Illustration by John Leech. Public domain.

    On January 2, 1840, Dickens wrote to his printers, Bradbury and Evans, to thank them for their annual Christmas gift of a turkey. He chose his words with care:

    My Dear Sirs,

    I determined not to thank you for the Turkey until it was quite gone, in order that you might have a becoming idea of its astonishing capabilities.

    The last remnant of that blessed bird made its appearance at breakfast yesterday—I repeat it, yesterday—the other portions having furnished forth seven grills, one boil, and a cold lunch or two.

    It is a generous letter, fully in keeping with the generosity of the people he is addressing. Still, like many people who write to express their thanks for unexpected or unwanted Christmas gifts, it seems that Dickens could not resist poking gentle fun at the purchasers’ taste, not least by hinting that sending him a turkey the size of a small child was perhaps being generous to a fault. Is there a note of reproach in “My Dear Sirs”? There is certainly more than one sense in which a turkey that hangs around for a week might be thought of as “that blessed bird,” as is clear from Dickens’s decision to pump up “turkey” into

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