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A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens finished writing his “Little Carol” in time for it to be published for Christmas 1843. He whipped it out in a couple months with a plan to make some quick cash to pay off some of his debt. Dickens was intent on producing a lavishly bound, gilt-edged book with hand colored illustrations at a reasonable price. As a result, even though he sold six thousand copies in the first few days of release, the profits were disappointingly low. Little did he know that “A Christmas Carol” was destined to become one of the most enduring Christmas stories of all time.

The story's “popularity played a critical role in redefining the importance of Christmas and major sentiments associated with the holiday” according to Dickens experts past and present. Written during a decline of the old holiday traditions, “A Christmas Carol” almost single handedly revived Christmas, as we know it. English Poet Thomas Hood wrote, “If Christmas, with its ancient and hospitable customs, its social and charitable observances, were in danger of decay, this is the book that would give them a new lease”.

As with many of Charles Dickens unforgettable characters, Scrooge, Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim were destined for the stage. By Christmas of 1844 there were eight versions of “A Christmas Carol” playing before the footlights in London and two on the boards in the United States. With copyright laws nearly non-existent at that time, Dickens received no royalties for any of these productions.

When Charles Dickens was invited to give a reading of “A Christmas Carol” as a fundraiser for the Industrial and Literary Institute at Birmingham Town Hall in 1852, it was the beginning of a new and exciting career. Who was more qualified to reconstitute his characters for an audience than the creator himself? In many ways, despite criticism from some of his peers and other literary types, the public readings where nothing more than an extension of the close connection that Charles Dickens already had with his readers.

A few years after that debut he hit the road as a public reader of his works, for profit, and remained in the spotlight performing “A Christmas Carol” and other stories until his death.