CHRISTMAS ESSENTIALS : The Greatest Novels, Tales & Poems for The Holiday Season

CHRISTMAS ESSENTIALS is an anthology that celebrates the spirit of Christmas through a diverse and magnificent collection of literature. This volume traverses the range of emotions and stories that encapsulate the holiday season, from the joyous to the reflective, presenting readers with a myriad of styles including poetry, short stories, and novels. The literary context of the collection taps into the traditional and the fantastical, featuring standout pieces that explore themes of redemption, love, and the magic of Christmas. The diversity within this compilation not only highlights the universal appeal of the holiday season but also showcases the significant literary contributions of its authors, making it a rich tapestry of Christmas sentiments. The authors and editors behind CHRISTMAS ESSENTIALS come from varied backgrounds and periods, representing a wide spectrum of cultural and literary movements. From the pioneering narratives of Harriet Beecher Stowe and the enchanting tales of Hans Christian Andersen to the poignant poems of William Wordsworth and the transformative stories of Leo Tolstoy, this anthology brings together a remarkable group of contributors. Their collective works, each resonating with the themes of hope, family, and the human experience, contribute to a layered understanding of Christmas. This historical and cultural mosaic not only situates the anthology within significant literary traditions but also offers readers a unique insight into the ways Christmas has been celebrated, lamented, and reflected upon across different contexts and times. CHRISTMAS ESSENTIALS is a must-have anthology for anyone who cherishes the holiday season and desires a deeper exploration of its meanings and manifestations. It invites readers to delve into a world where Christmas is not just a holiday, but a profound subject of artistic and emotional expression. This volume offers an unparalleled opportunity to engage with the works of some of literature's most beloved figures, all while experiencing the multifaceted perspectives on Christmas. Whether you're seeking the comfort of familiar holiday themes or the thrill of discovering new literary landscapes, CHRISTMAS ESSENTIALS promises to enrich your holiday season with its breadth of insights and the dialogue it fosters between an impressive array of authors' works.

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1552 books
Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens was born in 1812 and grew up in poverty. This experience influenced ‘Oliver Twist’, the second of his fourteen major novels, which first appeared in 1837. When he died in 1870, he was buried in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey as an indication of his huge popularity as a novelist, which endures to this day.
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Mark Twain
Mark Twain, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835, left school at age 12. His career encompassed such varied occupations as printer, Mississippi riverboat pilot, journalist, travel writer, and publisher, which furnished him with a wide knowledge of humanity and the perfect grasp of local customs and speech manifested in his writing. It wasn't until The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), that he was recognized by the literary establishment as one of the greatest writers America would ever produce. Toward the end of his life, plagued by personal tragedy and financial failure, Twain grew more and more cynical and pessimistic. Though his fame continued to widen--Yale and Oxford awarded him honorary degrees--he spent his last years in gloom and desperation, but he lives on in American letters as "the Lincoln of our literature."
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Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) was an American abolitionist and author of more than 20 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) was a realistic account of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom.
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684 books
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson was born on 13 November 1850, changing his second name to ‘Louis’ at the age of eighteen. He has always been loved and admired by countless readers and critics for ‘the excitement, the fierce joy, the delight in strangeness, the pleasure in deep and dark adventures’ found in his classic stories and, without doubt, he created some of the most horribly unforgettable characters in literature and, above all, Mr. Edward Hyde.
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William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads.
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Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott was born in 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She is best known for Little Women (1868), which is loosely based on her own life and proved to be one of the most popular children’s books ever written. Three sequels followed: Good Wives (1869), Little Men (1871), and Jo’s Boys (1886). Alcott was the daughter of the famous transcendentalist Bronson Alcott and was friend of Emerson and Thoreau. In addition to writing, she worked as a teacher, governess, and Civil War nurse, as well as being an advocate of abolition, women’s rights, and temperance. She died in 1888 and is buried in Sleepy Hollow cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.
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Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott was born in Scotland in 1771 and achieved international fame with his work. In 1813 he was offered the position of Poet Laureate, but turned it down. Scott mainly wrote poetry before trying his hand at novels. His first novel, Waverley, was published anonymously, as were many novels that he wrote later, despite the fact that his identity became widely known.
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Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India, in 1865. One of the most revered writers in recent history, many of his works are deemed classic literature. To this day, he maintains an avid following and reputation as one of the greatest storytellers of the past two centuries. In 1907, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 1936, but his stories live on—even eighty years after his passing.
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Beatrix Potter
Helen Beatrix Potter was an English writer, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist; she was best known for her children's books featuring animals, such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
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Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life, but today is considered to be one of the most influential poets in American history.
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O. Henry
William Sydney Porter—later to be known as O. Henry—was born in North Carolina in 1862. Known for his surprise endings and ability to capture the hope and pathos of ordinary people, Henry is best remembered for his stories about New York City. The Gift of the Magi was written in 1906, four years before his death.
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L. Frank Baum
Lyman Frank Baum was born in Chittenango, New York, on May 15, 1856. Over the course of his life, Baum raised fancy poultry, sold fireworks, managed an opera house, opened a department store, and an edited a newspaper before finally turning to writing. In 1900, he published his best known book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Eventually he wrote fifty-five novels, including thirteen Oz books, plus four “lost” novels, eighty-three short stories, more than two hundred poems, an unknown number of scripts, and many miscellaneous writings. Baum died on May 6, 1919. He is buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California.
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J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie (1860–1937) was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan.
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Hans Christian Andersen
One of the most prolific and beloved writers of all time, Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen is best known for his fairy tales. Born in Odense, Denmark, in 1805, Andersen published his first story at 17. In all, he wrote more than 150 stories before his death in 1875.
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39 books
William Butler Yeats
William Butler Yeats is generally considered to be Ireland’s greatest poet, living or dead, and one of the most important literary figures of the twentieth century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1923.
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Lucy Maud Montgomery
Lucy Maud Montgomery (November 30, 1874 – April 24, 1942), was a Canadian author best known for her series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, which was an immediate success. The first novel was followed by a series of sequels with Anne as the central character. Montgomery went on to publish 20 novels as well as 500 short stories and poems. She was born on Prince Edward Island, Canada.
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Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy grew up in Russia, raised by a elderly aunt and educated by French tutors while studying at Kazen University before giving up on his education and volunteering for military duty. When writing his greatest works, War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy drew upon his diaries for material. At eighty-two, while away from home, he suffered from declining health and died in Astapovo, Riazan in 1910.
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Clement Moore
Clement Clarke Moore, (1779-1863), was a professor at New York City's General Theological Seminary (built on land donated by his father) who, in an 1836 reprint of A Visit From St. Nicholas (more commonly known today as Twas the Night Before Christmas), was first credited as the author of the poem, and later included it in an anthology of his work.
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CHRISTMAS ESSENTIALS : The Greatest Novels, Tales & Poems for The Holiday Season

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Charles Dickens

Mark Twain

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Robert Louis Stevenson

William Wordsworth

Louisa May Alcott

Walter Scott

Rudyard Kipling

Beatrix Potter

Emily Dickinson

O. Henry

L. Frank Baum

J. M. Barrie

Hans Christian Andersen

William Butler Yeats

Lucy Maud Montgomery

Leo Tolstoy

Clement Moore