Book Review: A Carol for Mrs. Dickens

Rebecca Connolly's A Carol for Mrs. Dickens provides a female protagonist for an additional consideration of Charles Dickens' famous novel, A Christmas Carol. This was an enjoyable, faith-filled jaunt into Victorian times featuring the Dickens family. It reflects several true historical aspects of this well-known family. In 1851, Catherine published a cookbook under a pen name. She and Charles also lost their 7-month-old daughter, Dora, in that year and Catherine struggled with this death. Charles often read from his own carol or from his family book, The Life of Our Lord, when celebrating the holidays. 

Historical details render a very human, conflicted image of this author (once my favorite author). On the one hand, he seemed determined to raise his children with an awareness of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, rumors say he was unfaithful to his wife. We cannot know if those rumors were true. Yet, he separated from Catherine in 1858, creating some division with other authors, including Thackeray and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. He even ignored her death with some sort of comment about where there once was writing, it was then blank. Poor Catherine! It must have been hard to be a spouse to a charismatic man much esteemed in the public eye.

Connolly's carol focuses on Catherine in her despair after losing her daughter. Catherine seeks a renewed vision of the true meaning of Christmas, not the one painted in her husband's well-received Christmas Carol. Through a series of three trips to forgotten memories, she finds her Christmas joy restored. These visions emphasize her husband's generosity and the joy of childhood wonder, the joy of new love relationships (especially hers with the younger Charles), and the joy of giving to those in need. Catherine grows and changes throughout the telling, as she leads the reader to prize the holiday and the various joys of the season.