Bob Cratchit may have had to work in dismal, cramped conditions, but not so his creator. Dickens was a compulsive re arranger who refused to write in any room if the tables and chairs weren't ordered just so. he had an uncanny ability to remember the precise location of every piece of furniture in any given room and he would spend hours reorganizing to suit his whims. When he was a gust at a private home or swanky hotel, his first task was to rearrange everything in his room to match his own interior plan. (Secret Lives Of Great Authors, p.41)
The fact is, like a true classic, A Christmas Carol needs no updating. Like a myth it always means what it says. It makes its statement and speaks to us across the years.
