Charles Dickens Couldn’t Stop Tinkering With ‘A Christmas Carol’

(via Atlas Obscura)  Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, swiftly entered the holiday-season canon—the sort of story readers return to year after year, wherever there’s a crackling fire, a dusting of snow, and a mug of eggnog at hand. But when Dickens gave public readings from the text, the story changed a bit from one performance to another. His marked-up stage copy of the book, on view at the New York Public Library, gives readers a peek into the writer’s mind as he reworked his spirited prose.