Starship Asterisk*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Carol wrote:
<<Charles Dickens began to write A Christmas Carol in October 1843, and completed the book in six weeks with the final pages written in the beginning of December. Bound in red cloth with gilt-edged pages, the book was published in London by Chapman and Hall, and released on 19 December 1843. Four expensive, hand-coloured etchings and four black and white wood engravings by John Leech accompanied the text. Modestly priced at five shillings, the first run of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve and the book continued to sell well into the New Year. In spite of the disappointing profits for the author, the book was a huge artistic success.>>
[list].............................................................
<<I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book,
. to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my
. readers out of humour with themselves, with each other,
. with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses
. pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

___ Their faithful Friend and Servant,
_________ C. D. DECEMBER, 1843.>>
............................................................
. Old Marley was as DEAD AS A DOOR-NAIL
. Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my
. own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about
. a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to
. regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery
. in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors
. is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands
. shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You
. will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that
. Marley was as DEAD AS A DOOR-NAIL.
. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did.[/list]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Marlowe wrote:
<<Christopher Marlowe or Marley (26 February 1564–30 May 1593) was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious death.

A warrant was issued for Marlowe's arrest on 18 May 1593. No reason for it was given, though it was thought to be connected to allegations of blasphemy—a manuscript believed to have been written by Marlowe was said to contain "vile heretical conceipts." He was brought before the Privy Council for questioning on 20 May, after which he had to report to them daily. Ten days later [on 30 May 1593, Marley] was stabbed to death by Ingram Frizer.

Christopher Marlowe/[b][color=#FF0000]Marley[/color][/b]'s only signature

---

Within weeks of his death, George Peele remembered him as "Marley, the Muses' darling"; Michael Drayton noted that he "Had in him those brave translunary things / That the first poets had." Thomas Nashe wrote warmly of his friend, "poor deceased Kit Marlowe". The anonymous author of the play _The Return From Parnassus_ (1598) who wrote, "Pity it is that wit so ill should dwell, / Wit lent from heaven, but vices sent from hell."

The most famous tribute to Marlowe was paid by Shakespeare in As You Like It,
where he not only quotes a line from Hero and Leander
(Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?")
but also gives to the clown Touchstone the words:

[c]"When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with the forward child, understanding,
it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room."[/c]
This appears to be a reference to Marlowe's murder which involved a fight over the "reckoning", the bill,
as well as to a line in Marlowe's Jew of Malta - "Infinite riches in a little room".>>

.          Greatest    Saros   Eclipse             Sun  Path Center
.  Date    Eclipse U.T. Type #   Mag.   Lat.  Long. Alt  Width  Dur.
.
1593 May 30  13:05   T  121   1.070  21.3N  16.9W  89  227 06m08s
1843 Dec 21  05:03   T  139   1.016   8.0N 101.0E  58   66 01m43s

• May 30, 1593 Eclipse Mag. at Mecca 0.91 upon the eve of Ramadan, 1001 A.H.
  Dec.21, 1843 Eclipse Mag. at Mecca 0.84 upon the eve of Winter Solstice