On this day 180 years ago, Chapman & Hall published Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The first printing sold out by Christmas Eve.

My dad loves this Dickens classic, and so we were exposed early. I was (and am) not a particular fan of ghost stories, so it took many years before I came to appreciate the original text, although I do have a fondness for some of the film and tv adaptations, especially Mr. Magoo’s:

We grew up listening to the old audio plays. This is the Campbell (of the soup fame) Playhouse version, with Lionel Barrymore as Ebenezer Scrooge and Orson Welles as the narrator:

If you’ve got some time to listen — wrapping presents maybe or baking or navigating traffic — here is Neil Gaiman reading the unabridged story from Dickens’ folio:

And if you are a lucky soul in New York City (know if I’d discovered this earlier, I’d have been on a train now!), Gaiman is doing a costumed reading at Town Hall tonight to benefit the New York Public Library, and tickets still seem to be available.