Christmas Penny Readings: Original Sketches for the Season
1866
Christmas Penny Readings: Original Sketches for the Season
1866
In the grimy streets of Victorian London, Christmas brings no comfort to Hezekiah Thornypath. George Manville Fenn strips away the sentimental veneer of the festive season to reveal something raw and urgent: grinding poverty, hollow bellies, dead children mourned in cold rooms while carolers pass by outside. First published in 1866 as penny pamphlets for the working classes, these sketches pulse with unflinching social realism. Hezekiah came to the city seeking prosperity and found only ruin. As London decks itself in holly and goodwill, he sits hungry and alone, remembering the children he couldn't save. Fenn offers no easy redemption, no miraculous windfall. Instead, he offers something harder and more honest: the possibility that a stranger's kindness might briefly bridge the chasm between want and plenty. These are lives lived at the margins, rendered with a journalist's eye for detail and a novelist's feeling for sorrow. For readers who found Dickens too sweet, who want their holiday literature to ache.
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“For it is said that humans are never satisfied, that you give them one thing and they want something more. And this is said in disparagement, whereas it is one of the greatest talents the species has and one that has made it superior to animals that are satisfied with what they have.””
— George Manville Fenn
“Luck, you see, brings bitter friends.””
— George Manville Fenn
“It is not good to want a thing too much. It sometimes drives the luck away. You must want it just enough, and you must be very tactful with Gods or the gods.””
— George Manville Fenn
“He said, "I am a man," and that meant certain things to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and half god.””
— George Manville Fenn
“A plan is a real thing, and things projected are experienced. A plan once made and visualized becomes reality along with other realities”
— George Manville Fenn
“She knew she could help him best by being silent and by being near.””
— George Manville Fenn
“He had said, "I am a man," and that meant certain things to Juana. It meant that he was half insane and half god. It meant that Kino would drive his strength against a mountain and plunge his strength against the sea. Juana, in her woman's soul, knew that the mountain would stand while the man broke himself; that the sea would surge while the man drowned in it. And yet it was this thing that made him a man, half insane and half god, and Juana had need of a man; she could not live without a man.””
— George Manville Fenn
“The people say that the two seemed to be removed from human experience; that they had gone through pain and had come out on the other side.””
— George Manville Fenn
“It was a morning like other mornings and yet perfect among mornings.””
— George Manville Fenn
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Fenn, George Manville. Christmas Penny Readings: Original Sketches for the Season. Lex, lex-books.com/book/christmas-penny-readings-original-sketches-for-the-season-5df56253-db86-4790-b986-69a6922c59b0.Fenn, G. M. (1866). Christmas Penny Readings: Original Sketches for the Season. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/christmas-penny-readings-original-sketches-for-the-season-5df56253-db86-4790-b986-69a6922c59b0Fenn, George Manville. Christmas Penny Readings: Original Sketches for the Season. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/christmas-penny-readings-original-sketches-for-the-season-5df56253-db86-4790-b986-69a6922c59b0.
