I read this...it's the one where Bill Murray and that giant Grim Reaper guy brutally murder Andie McDowell before she can f*ck up one of the greatest movies of all time, right?

/oh wait

It's not difficult to read if you are used to edited autograph manuscripts, especially if you're familiar with the author's hand.

Actually, that's pretty cool. Thanks for posting it, subby. You done good. Here's a lump of coal for you ;)

That car chase seemed totally tacked on; he was right to cut it.



Stephen Fry did a really good short Sherlock Holmes story which involved Dickens and Christmas in a roundabout way. It's in his anthology of newspaper articles and short pieces called "Paperweight."

I absolutely love "A Sale of Two Titties" by Darles Chickens.

ecmoRandomNumbers: I absolutely love "A Sale of Two Titties" by Darles Chickens.

WIN.

I'm wondering why he didn't just get OpenOffice. It's FREE, fer Chrissakes.

That looks like the revised scripts I used to get when I was a writers' assistant on a sitcom!

that sucks, it's a slideshow. Guess Dickens didn't have the professional edition of Acrobat.

Subby, I challenge you to write one page by hand, in cursive with a pen like he used, better than that.

benlonghair: Subby, I challenge you to write one page by hand, in cursive with a pen like he used, better than that.

That's actually not too hard. The whole point of cursive is to minimize pen lifts so that you don't have drips or smears. With even a small amount of practice with a dip pen, you can write a letter that would appear to modern eyes to be full-blown calligraphy.

The challenge isn't to write more legibly than he did - it's to write faster than he did. When we write by hand, we tend to sacrifice legibility for speed - after all, WE can read it. So I'm quite sure that Dickens, with his lifetime of experience churning out long novels by hand, could write that page far faster and more efficiently than anyone but a highly trained and experienced calligrapher could today.

/it's not hard to read because of the handwriting; it's hard to read because it's hard to piece the edits together

Maybe Christopher Tolkien can figure it out.

whistleridge: So I'm quite sure that Dickens, with his lifetime of experience churning out long novels by hand, could write that page far faster and more efficiently than anyone but a highly trained and experienced calligrapher could today.

Without doubt. My mom is a self-trained calligrapher. It's amazing to watch her write. Being a lefty, she has to plan the line and write right-to-left because she doesn't want to smudge the ink.

She can write in reverse faster than most people can write forward (as in you can read it correctly in a mirror). I did not inherit her artistic talent. :(

That's not bad, it's at least legible. Some authors were known for not being so good with legible writing.

Does it have the missing section that reveals Scrooge's real business was human trafficking?

cool story, bro!

CitizenTed: ecmoRandomNumbers: I absolutely love "A Sale of Two Titties" by Darles Chickens.

WIN.

I'm wondering why he didn't just get OpenOffice. It's FREE, fer Chrissakes.

This

Dickens aint got nothing on old Ludwig van:

/hot

ecmoRandomNumbers: I absolutely love "A Sale of Two Titties" by Darles Chickens.

I preferred Knickerless Nicholby.

I have a facsimile folio of a Beethoven trio, and two pages if it appear to be almost completely scribbled over in black crayon.

Also, when Beethoven angrily struck Napoleon's name from the dedication page to the 3rd symphony, he managed to tear through a number of pages with his pen. I makes sense that Beethoven was known for breaking pianofortes when he played.

whistleridge: I read this...it's the one where Bill Murray and that giant Grim Reaper guy brutally murder Andie McDowell before she can f*ck up one of the greatest movies of all time, right?

/oh wait

Have you tried staples?

This is why we have script handwriting. See how it blotted whenever he had to lift the pen to cross a "t"? Imagine if he had to lift if for every letter at least once.

Hard to believe that's written in American.

I Like Bread: ecmoRandomNumbers: I absolutely love "A Sale of Two Titties" by Darles Chickens.

I preferred Knickerless Nicholby.

I like the work of Edmund Wells. Dickens was just a plagiarizing hack compared to the master.

/David Coperfield FTW!

Maybe now we'll get to see the deleted sex scene.

And now for something completely tastless

And so, as Tiny Tim observed, Mr. Scrooge's tallywhacker gave him a jolt that emptied his head like a spoon scraping the inside of a soft-boiled egg.

THE END

the tale he wrote in 1843 of an unfeeling rich middle class man and the boy who pricked his conscience.

Author of the article needs to read the story again

I wrote large parts of a novel by hand, then moved to typewriter. In neither case would I feel any need to make a second copy.

I am sad, though, that Dickens changed the space aliens from the future to ghosts.

Was he paid by the edit or something?

Dickens Faire babes are teh hawt.

a 69 page slideshow?!! Fark you subby! In your arse! With red hot pokers!

What the Dickens!

Looks like some of the god-damned mid-term exams I've had to grade over the years...

Stanfan114: Dickens aint got nothing on old Ludwig van:

At least you can make out what he was writing. Can't remember what composer it was, but his stuff was basically illegible to everyone. It had to be rewritten by someone else before anyone could play it.

Guma: RIP CHARLES DICKENS

You left me nothing. NOTHING!

"God bless us, every bone." WTF?

I thought the bit where he killed off the maid, only to have her return as a Welsh cop working for an agency above the police and beyond the law, was a bold move.

What a dick(ens).

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.

SwiftFox: This is why we have script handwriting. See how it blotted whenever he had to lift the pen to cross a "t"? Imagine if he had to lift if for every letter at least once.

Yes, a cheap fountain pen will do that.

Which one was dead?

My aunt and uncle did a dramatic reading of this on CD as Christmas gifts one year (and a very nice job of it they did too!), but their version differed from the one I had in print.
When I asked about this, my uncle told me this very thing; Dickens had done a great deal of revising and there WERE several editions of this classic story floating about.
There were a number of minor differences, but the basic story remained intact.

In their version, Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come and Scrooge are stalking observing the Cratchits.
Tiny Tim has indeed cast off his mortal coil and joined the bleedin' choir invisible...but his pathetic little cadaver is still on the premises, laid out upstairs, awaiting burial.
This juxtaposition allows Bob Cratchit (depicted as all broken up, crushed, devasted, etc.,) to go upstairs where Tim has been parked. He then stares at the corpse for a few minutes.

The way it's written, this little interlude isn't so much sad as it is ghoulish.
Despite Cratchitt's being described as being rendered peaceful, calm, accepting etc., by this action, you get a sense of him almost gloating over his son's corpse.

I can see why this scene was cut..."It didn't work" was an understatement.

lukelightning: It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.

The BLURST of times?! You stupid monkey!

i remember vaguely a skit that has scrooge having the change of heart and after that the people in town treat him like a fool because he erased their debts to him and they beg, steal, or con everything he owns and he dies broke and friendless. a SNL skit?

syzygy whizz: Tiny Tim has indeed cast off his mortal coil and joined the bleedin' choir invisible...but his pathetic little cadaver is still on the premises, laid out upstairs, awaiting burial.
This juxtaposition allows Bob Cratchit (depicted as all broken up, crushed, devasted, etc.,) to go upstairs where Tim has been parked.

Same in the new movie.