Charles Dickens

The closing exchange of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” shows a repentant Ebeneezer Scrooge pouring his long-abused employee Bob Cratchit a steaming mug of Smoking Bishop. Learn the drinks history and recipe.

Starting with the ancients and leaving off in the mid-20th century, the author aims to whet your appetite with short introductions to the tales his book’s subtitle claims that “every Catholic should know.”

While the new Dickens movie, “The Man Who Invented Christmas,” is an adaptation of a nonfiction book “A Christmas Carol,” author and screenwriter Samantha Silva has written a new fictionalized account of Dickens titled “Mr. Dickens and His Carol.”