A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol is a novella by the British writer Charles Dickens. It was first published on 19 December 1843 by Chapman & Hall in London. John Leech made the illustrations. The first edition was a beautiful and expensive book. It was sold out by Christmas Eve, but Dickens never made the money he expected on the tale due to the book's high production costs.

When Dickens wrote the novella, the British were longing for the traditional merry Old English Christmas. Christmas customs of the past were being revived. New Christmas customs such as the Christmas tree and the greeting card were making their first appearances. Old carols were being sung. The novella has been credited with restoring the festive spirit of Christmas after a period of Puritan sobriety and solemnity. ^[source?]

The story is about a Christmas-hating miser named Ebenezer Scrooge. On Christmas Eve, he is visited by four ghosts who transform him into a kind and generous man. The story has a strong moral messages about greed and poverty. It is usually read at Christmas time and has been adapted to theatre, movies, radio, and television many times.

Charles Dickens was from a middle-class family. The family got into financial difficulty, because Charles' father, John Dickens, was bad at dealing with money. In 1824, John Dickens was put in prison, because of the debt he had. Charles had to pawn his collection of books, and leave shool to work at a factory. He was twelve years old at the time. The factory where he worked produced shoe polish. It was dirty and there were many rats. The change gave him what his biographer, Michael Slater, describes as a "deep personal and social outrage", which heavily influenced his writing and outlook.^[1][2]

By the end of 1842, Dickens was a well-established author with six major works^{[n 1]} as well as many short stories, novellas and other pieces.^[3] On 31 December that year he started publishing his novel Martin Chuzzlewit as a monthly serial. There weere 20 parts, the last one was published on 30 June 1844.^[4] It was his favourite work, but sales were low and he faced temporary financial difficulties.^[4]

Celebrating the Christmas season had become more popular through the Victorian era.^[5] The Christmas tree was introduced in Britain during the 18th century, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert popularised its use.^[6] In the early 19th century people had become more interested in Christmas carols again. Their popularity of these stories had declined over the previous hundred years. The publication of Davies Gilbert's 1823 work Some Ancient Christmas Carols, With the Tunes to Which They Were Formerly Sung in the West of England and William Sandys's 1833 collection Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern led christmas carols becoming more popular in Britain.^[7]

Dickens had an interest in Christmas. His first story on the subject was "Christmas Festivities". It was first published in Bell's Weekly Messenger in 1835. The story was then published as "A Christmas Dinner" in Sketches by Boz (1836).^[8] "The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton", another Christmas story, appeared in the 1836 novel The Pickwick Papers. In the episode, a Mr Wardle describes a misanthropic (people hater) sexton, Gabriel Grub. Grub changes his ways at Christmas after being visited by goblins who show him the past and future.^[9] Slater considers that "the main elements of the Carol are present in the story", but not yet in a firm form.^[10] The story is followed by a passage about Christmas in Dickens's editorial Master Humphrey's Clock.^[10] The professor of English literature Paul Davis writes that although the "Goblins" story appears to be a prototype of A Christmas Carol, all Dickens's earlier writings about Christmas influenced the story.^[11]

By mid-1843 Dickens started to suffer from financial problems. Sales of Martin Chuzzlewit were falling off, and his wife, Catherine, was pregnant with their fifth child. Matters worsened when Chapman & Hall, his publishers, threatened to reduce his monthly income by GB£50 (equivalent to £4,945 in 2019) if sales dropped further.^[12] He started A Christmas Carol in October 1843.^[13] Michael Slater, Dickens's biographer, describes the book as being "written at white heat"; it was completed in six weeks, the final pages were written in early December.^[14] He built much of the work in his head while taking night-time walks of 15 to 20 miles (24 to 32 km) around London.^[15] Dickens's sister-in-law wrote how he "wept, and laughed, and wept again, and excited himself in a most extraordinary manner, in composition".^[16] Slater says that A Christmas Carol was

intended to open its readers' hearts towards those struggling to survive on the lower rungs of the economic ladder and to encourage practical benevolence, but also to warn of the terrible danger to society created by the toleration of widespread ignorance and actual want among the poor.^[17]

George Cruikshank, the illustrator who had earlier worked with Dickens on Sketches by Boz (1836) and Oliver Twist (1838), introduced him to the caricaturist John Leech. By 24 October Dickens invited Leech to work on A Christmas Carol, and four hand-coloured etchings and four black-and-white wood engravings by the artist accompanied the text.^[18] Dickens's hand-written manuscript of the story does not include the sentence in the penultimate paragraph "... and to Tiny Tim, who did not die"; this was added later, during the printing process.^{[19][n 2]}

Martin Chuzzlewit did not sell well, and Dickens had some disagreements with his publisher Chapman and Hall.^[20] For this reason, Dickens said he would pay for the publishing himself, in exchange for getting a part of the profits.^[21]

There were also some problems with the production. The first printing was meant to have festive green endpapers, but they came out a dull olive colour. Dickens' publisher Chapman and Hall replaced these with yellow endpapers and reworked the title page in harmonising red and blue shades.^[22] The final product was bound in red cloth with gilt-edged pages. It was completed only two days before the publication date of 19 December 1843.^[23] Following publication, Dickens arranged for the manuscript to be bound in red Morocco leather and presented as a gift to his solicitor, Thomas Mitton.^{[24][n 3]}

The first edition was priced at five shillings (equal to £25 in 2025 pounds).^[25] Its 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve, five days later. Chapman and Hall issued second and third editions before the new year, and the book continued to sell well into 1844.^[27] By the end of 1844 eleven more editions had been released.^[28] Since its initial publication the book has been issued in numerous hardback and paperback editions, translated into several languages and has never been out of print.^[29] It was Dickens's most popular book in the United States, and sold over two million copies in the hundred years following its first publication there.^[30]

The high production costs upon which Dickens insisted led to reduced profits, and the first edition brought him only GB£230 (equivalent to £22,746 in 2019)^[25] rather than the GB£1,000 (equivalent to £98,897 in 2019)^[25] he expected.^[31] A year later, the profits were only GB£744, and Dickens was deeply disappointed.^{[20][n 4]}

Ebenezer Scrooge is a Christmas-hating old miser and businessman. One Christmas Eve, Scrooge declines an invitation to his nephew's house for Christmas dinner, telling his nephew that Christmas is "Humbug". He then refuses to give a donation to two men who are collecting for charity.

Later that evening, the ghost of his dead business partner Jacob Marley, a man whose greed and selfishness have doomed him to eternal hellfire, visits him. He tells Scrooge that he must change his ways or that hellfire will be his fate. Marley warns him that during the night three more ghosts will visit him. These will show him where he went wrong in his life, and how to be a better person in the future.

The first ghost is the Ghost of Christmas Past. This ghost shows him his unhappy childhood and how he did not get married.

The second ghost is the Ghost of Christmas Present. This ghost shows him things which are happening now, such as how his clerk, Bob Cratchit, is having a nice Christmas despite not having much money. He also shows him Bob's youngest son, called Tiny Tim, who is crippled. Later, the ghost shows him how his nephew is having a good Christmas, and how Scrooge is missing out.

The third ghost is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. This ghost shows Scrooge what Christmas will be like in the future if he does not change. First, people are shown celebrating a man's death and robbing his house. The ghost also shows him that Tiny Tim has died. Scrooge is then shown his own grave, and realizes that the celebrations were for his death.

On Christmas morning, Scrooge wakes up and realizes that he has to change. He decides to celebrate Christmas, and help Tiny Tim get well. He sends the Cratchit family a prize turkey for their holiday dinner. Through the ghosts' help, Scrooge becomes a better man.

The book made popular the phrase "Merry Christmas" as well as the name "Scrooge" and the phrase "Bah! Humbug". The book spurred charitable giving in the years following its first publication. Its lasting legacy is returning to Christmas the merriment and festivity the day lost after a period of Puritan sobriety.

• Works related to A Christmas Carol at Wikisource
• A Christmas Carol at Project Gutenberg