Dickens' Christmas, compiled by John Hudson
This is one of the Sutton Christmas anthologies that is not concentrated on a certain shire, but a certain era, and contains compilations from mostly Charles Dickens' Christmas writings (chiefly A Christmas Carol, but also from his monthly magazine "Household Words"), but also has Dickens' era offerings, including the tale of an ordinary man who got himself assigned to one of the terrible workhouses and revealed the crowded and smelly living conditions and meager meals (at one point he says that a candle dipped in boiling water would probably provide more nutrition than the food that was fed the paupers). There's an excerpt from Washington Irving's "Bracebridge Hall" quintet of stories, the scathing poem "Song of the Shirt" about a poor woman receiving hardly enough money from sewing rich people's garments to feed herself, several other workhouse accounts, a lively account of how to give a children's party, and lots of woodcuts and engravings for the era.
I would say pick this one up at a good library book sale.
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