David McCullough on Dickens

A Christmas Carol manuscript: "It's going to send a chill right up your spine"

David McCullough is the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Truman, 1776, and John Adams among many other books.

In a speech given at the Second Annual Library of Congress National Book Festival on Oct. 12, 2002 McCullough, listing his favorite books, comes to Dickens:

"Dickens, of course all of Dickens. Rosalee and I just last Christmas were in New York, we went over to the Morgan Library and we saw the original manuscript of 'A Christmas Carol.' If you've never gone to the Morgan Library to see that, go, and it's going to send a chill right up your spine, there it is, a little book about that big [indicates a small book] in Dickens own hand. I guess if I had to pick my favorite of all of Dickens it would be 'Great Expectations', but it's a hard choice."

In a 2002 interview with National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Chairman Bruce Cole:

"I love Dickens. I love the way he sets a scene. He said, in his great admonition to writers: 'Make me see.' I try to make you see what's happening and smell it and hear it. I want to know what they had for dinner. I want to know how long it took to walk from where to where."