Les Conteurs À La Ronde
1881
A Christmas gathering becomes the setting for something far more ambitious than holiday cheer. As family members settle in to take turns telling stories, the embers of rivalry, nostalgia, and long-buried secrets begin to glow. The evening belongs to 'the poor relative,' a self-effacing figure whose gentle humor masks a lifetime of dreams deferred and modest disappointments. What begins as polite entertainment gradually reveals the fault lines running through this household: the unspoken hierarchies, the resentments nursed over generations, the way storytelling itself becomes a battleground for status and belonging. Dickens weaves these voices together into something that feels less like a collection of tales and more like a single living evening, where every anecdote casts light on the listeners as much as the told. The festive warmth never quite masks the chill of what remains unsaid, and the reader comes to understand that every family gathers around its own invisible table, taking turns performing for each other year after year.
Editions
X-Ray
“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.””
— Charles Dickens
“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.””
— Charles Dickens
“You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me why?""I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.””
— Charles Dickens
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach.””
— Charles Dickens
“No space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused””
— Charles Dickens
“For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.””
— Charles Dickens
“You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!””
— Charles Dickens
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew. 'Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round”
— Charles Dickens
“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!””
— Charles Dickens
