SOURCE: “A Christmas Carol and the Masque,” in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. 30, No. 1, 1993, pp. 63–9.

In the following essay, Butterworth probes Dickens's familiarity with the masque form and determines its influence on A Christmas Carol.

In his Preface to the First Cheap Edition of A Christmas Carol, Dickens wrote of his intention in writing his Christmas books of awakening some “loving and forbearing thoughts” by means of “a whimsical kind of masque” (xiv).¹ Commentators have not made much of this comment, perhaps on the assumption that Dickens's familiarity with masques could not but be slight. This, however, is an unwarranted assumption. Examination of the contents of Dickens's library, as listed in the inventory of his belongings made when the family went to Italy in 1844 (Letters 4: 711–25) reveals that it was at least possible for the writer to have been thoroughly acquainted with the masque form. He could, for instance...