| Ebenezer Scrooge | |
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 | |
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Real Name |
Ebenezer Scrooge |
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First Appearance |
A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas. (19 December 1843) |
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Created by |
Charles Dickens |
Origin[]
Ebenezer Scrooge was the protagonist of Charles Dickens's 1843 short novel, A Christmas Carol. Initially a cold-hearted miser who despises Christmas. For example, despite having considerable personal wealth, he underpays his clerk Bob Cratchit and hounds his debtors relentlessly while living cheaply and joylessly in the chambers of his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley. In addition, every year his nephew, Fred , would invite his uncle to his Christmas parties and every year, but Scrooge declined.
His redemption by three spirits (the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come) has become a defining tale of the Christmas holiday in the English-speaking world.
Dickens describes Scrooge thus early in the story: "The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice." Towards the end of the novella, the three spirits show Scrooge the errors of his ways, and he becomes a better, more generous man.
Scrooge's last name has entered the English language as a byword for greed and misanthropy, while his catchphrase, "Bah! Humbug!" is often used to express disgust with many modern Christmas traditions.
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
Literature:
- A Christmas Carol
Public Domain Film Appearances[]
- Scrooge, or, Ghost of Jacob Marley (1908)
- A Christmas Carol (1910)
- A Christmas Carol aka Old Scrooge (1913)
- A Christmas Carol (1914)
- The Right to Be Happy (1916)
- Scrooge (1935)
Public Domain Comic Appearances[]
- Santa Claus Funnies #1 (1942)
- Santa Claus Funnies #1 (1952)
- A Christmas Treasury (1954)
Notes[]
- The character of Scrooge McDuck, created by Carl Barks, was at least partially based on Ebenezer Scrooge: "I began to think of the great Dickens Christmas story about Scrooge… I was just thief enough to steal some of the idea and have a rich uncle for Donald."