Charles Dickens Publishes A Christmas Carol

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.

– Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens' novella, A Christmas Carol in Prose Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (London: Chapman and Hall, 1843), tells the tale of an elderly miser named Ebenezer Scrooge who is haunted by the ghost of Jacob Marley, his former business partner.  Marley lived a selfish, stingy, greedy life -- and Scrooge is of the same unpleasant ilk. Appearing in chains, burdened with money boxes, Marley warns him of the portentous spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come, and urges Scrooge to change and avoid eternal misery. Just a couple of weeks past December 19th, A Christmas Carol became a best seller, leading to many new editions; translations into other languages; and adaptations to film, theater, and other media over the following centuries. Dickens' simple, but popular tale of one man's transformation into a kinder, gentler, and more generous human being lifted the minds and hearts of rigid, class-based Victorian society; taught the importance of giving; and elevated his status as a writer. 

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) struggled with financial hardship. He worked in a factory as a child, dreamed of being an actor, and tried to make ends meet as a Parliamentary and newspaper reporter.  A gifted writer,  he used satire to comment on social morals and conditions, with detailed characterizations in his prose. He became a short story writer and novelist whose works were successfully serialized in monthly and weekly magazines before they were published as books.

Charles Dickens wrote fourteen novels, including David Copperfield, Bleak House, Great Expectations, and A Tale of Two Cities, all with colorful, impressionable characters and intricate plots and subplots. Dickens is considered the greatest English novelist of the Victorian era, and his classic works are read and enjoyed to this day in schools and homes all over the world. 

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