One of the greatest stories ever told is set in the heart of the world's greatest city.
Although Charles Dickens is rarely precise with his addresses, we can often winkle out the various alleyways, churches and houses of which he speaks in A Christmas Carol — or at least take educated guesses as to the places he's alluding to. Delightfully, the City of London retains many of the crooked courts and storied streets that evoke the singularly chilling-yet-cosy atmosphere of this ghostly yuletide yarn.
Our map of A Christmas Carol locations marks everything from the restaurant in which Scrooge has his 'melancholy dinner' (Simpson's off Cornhill... which sadly closed recently in a fight with the building's owners), through to the house Dickens was probably thinking of when writing the Cratchit family scenes.
We also take a deeper dive into the book and its adaptations, charting the home of the book's publishers (he made a shockingly small amount from the first edition), the workshop where puppets for The Muppet Christmas Carol were crafted, and the setting for Dickens' last ever public reading of his timeless tale.
2023 sees a seasonal flurry of A Christmas Carol adaptations on the stage — we've added the best of these to our map, too.
Why not fill a flask with mulled wine (or "Smoking Bishop" as is referenced in the book) and take to the streets with this map, in search of Scrooge's London.
Got a worthy location to add? Email [email protected]
