"The Fireside Book of Christmas Stories" (1945)

"The Fireside Book of Christmas Stories" (1945)

Bobbs-Merrill Company

Editor: Edward Wagenknecht

Illustrator: Wallace Morgan

We now land in 1945 for a look at "The Fireside Book of Christmas Stories," which lives up to its name by including a lot of Christmas stories.

One of the stories is "A Christmas Carol," and like each of the other stories, it gets one illustration on its title page:

I like this illustration by Wallace Morgan and wish there were more for this story!

This book is about 700 pages long, so there's room for plenty of material. You'd think that the inclusion of "A Christmas Carol" would be a non-brainer, but that's not exactly the case!

Here's an excerpt from the introduction by editor Edward Wagenknecht:

Mr. Wagenknecht being a noted critic, his introduction reads like something of a critical essay. It kinda sounds like he's bowing to popular pressure by including "A Christmas Carol" in this book!

But critics gonna criticize!