Learn About A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol, probably the most popular piece of fiction that Dickens ever wrote,  was published in 1843.  

Dickens's Life At The Time

• Late in 1842 or early in 1843 Dickens begins work on Martin Chuzzlewit.
• Dickens begins work on A Christmas Carol in October of 1843.  It is published during the holiday season of that year.  
• On January 15, 1844 Francis Jeffery (Frank) Dickens, the third son of Charles Dickens, is born.  

Popularity of the Book
A Christmas Carol was the most successful book of the 1843 holiday season.  By Christmas it sold six thousand copies and it continued to be popular into the new year.  Eight stage adaptations were in production within two months of the book's publication.  

The book is as popular today as it was over 150 years ago.  Charles Dickens, through the voice of Scrooge, continues to urge us to honor Christmas in our hearts and  try to keep it all the year.

Ragged Schools  
Dickens was involved in charities and social issues throughout his entire life.  At the time that he wrote A Christmas Carol he was very concerned with impoverished children who turned to crime and delinquency in order to survive. 

"This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want."

Dickens, as well as others, thought that education could provide a way to a better life for these children.  The Ragged School movement put these ideas into action.  The schools provided free education for children in the inner-city.  The movement got its name from the way the children attending the school were dressed.  They often wore tattered or ragged clothing.  

Themes
Scrooge's transformation is legendary.  At the beginning of the story he's a greedy, selfish person .

" . . . every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart." to the man who "knew how to keep Christmas well"

Initially Scrooge is a miser who shows a decided lack of concern for the rest of mankind.  However after a ghostly night, Scrooge sees life in a whole new way. 

He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. 

Beyond merely urging his readers to not be miserly Dickens seems to be reminding us of the importance in taking notice of the lives of those around us. 

"It is required of every man," the ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death."  

Dickens had this to say about 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. 

Their faithful Friend and Servant,

C. D.
December, 1843

Additional Resources

• A Christmas Carol Trivia

• Doctor, Does My Uncle Scrooge Need Help?

• Ask Scrooge a yes or no question

• A Christmas Carol Quiz 

• A Christmas Carol Picture Scramble

• Send A Christmas Carol Quote Cards

• See quotes from A Christmas Carol