As Dickens’ biographer Michael Slater described, the author thought of A Christmas Carol as a way to, “help open the hearts of the prosperous and powerful towards the poor and powerless…."ĭid you know… Upon publishing the first edition of A Christmas Carol, Dickens had his 66-page heavily revised handwritten manuscript bound in crimson leather and decorated in gilt before gifting it to his friend-and creditor-Thomas Mitton, whose name was also inscribed on the cover in gilt. Dickens had a lifelong devotion to helping the underserved due to his own family’s experiences with debtors prison, which forced him to drop out of school as a boy and work at a factory. Though it was a runaway best seller, Dickens was very fastidious about the endpapers and how the book was bound, and the price of materials took a big chunk out of his potential profits.ĭid you know… Like many of Dickens’ other works, A Christmas Carol was written as a work of social commentary. By 1844, the novella had gone through 13 printings and continues to be a robust seller more than 175 years later.ĭid you know… Dickens didn't make very much money from early editions of A Christmas Carol. Reportedly Dickens wrote the story while taking hours-long nighttime walks around London.ĭid you know… A Christmas Carol was first published on December 19, 1843, with the first edition sold out by Christmas Eve. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.ĭid you know… Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in just six weeks, under financial pressure. The novella’s full title is A Christmas Carol. In the spirit of the season, here are 10 things you may not know about the Christmas classic, including its original title, what happened to the original handwritten draft, and a rather famous American author who was not at all a fan.ĭid you know… A Christmas Carol was just one of several Christmas-themed stories written by Charles Dickens. It was such an immediate hit, that barely a month after its debut, Dickens was embroiled in a legal fight against a publishing company that had printed pirated copies.
Though he spent mere weeks writing it, Dickens' novella about the original Christmas grinch has been a holiday staple for nearly two centuries, giving rise to countless adaptations for stage and screen.
"Marley was dead, to begin with." With those six words, Charles Dickens invited us into the world of A Christmas Carol, indelibly introducing us to Ebenezer Scrooge, the three ghosts of Christmas, Tiny Tim, and a full cast of memorable characters. Fezziwig’s Ball, Hand colored etching by John Leech from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, via Wikimedia Commons
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