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About the Director: Tiffany Nichole Greene
History of A CHRISTMAS CAROL
Poverty
Production Elements
Assignments

History of 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, in his preface to A Christmas Carol

Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in only six weeks; the book was published on December 19, 1843. Since his previous book, Martin Chuzzlewit, was not the success his publishers, Chapman and Hall, had anticipated, they refused to pay the full amount of A Christmas Carol’s publication. Dickens paid for the publication himself, insisting on lavish binding, gilt edging, and hand-colored illustrations, and then set the price of the novella at 5 shillings so that everyone could afford it. Though the work sold well, the expensive publication and the low price resulted in little profit.

[Information courtesy of the British Library, Good Housekeeping, Mental Floss, TheCircumlocutionOffice.com, CharlesDickensPage.com, CharlesDickensInfo.com, Time, History.com, and BBC.com]

The Man Behind Ebenezer Scrooge

Go behind the scenes of our photoshoot with Alex Organ to meet the man behind 2018’s Ebenezer Scrooge!

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was originally going to be a pamphlet entitled  “An Appeal to the People of England on behalf of the Poor Man’s Child.” Based on the work’s former title, did Dickens achieve his intention?

Amber Rossi and Alex Organ. photo by Karen Almond

Inspirations

Though the parliamentary report on child labor was the impetus for A Christmas Carol, many other things influenced how Dickens wrote.

• Charles Dickens’ own past: When Dickens was just 12, his father was thrown into debtors’ prison, and Dickens was sent to work in a factory. This experience influenced how Dickens wrote about debtors’ prison and child labor, which became central topics for many of Dickens’ books.
• His sister, Fanny: Dickens’ older sister, Fanny, had a disabled son, Harry. Visiting Harry caused Dickens to reflect on the lives of disabled children, especially impoverished disabled children. Harry was the inspiration for Tiny Tim, who, despite Dickens devotedly paying the best doctors to care for him, did not have the same happy ending.
• Malton, North Yorkshire: Not long before writing A Christmas Carol, Dickens vacationed in Malton. The town is said to have inspired many of the details in the book, especially the references to church bells.
• Charles Smithson: The offices of Dickens’ friend, the solicitor, Charles Smithson, are said to have inspired the description of Scrooge’s counting house.
• John Elwes: Some say that Scrooge is based on the cheap politician John Elwes, who was so cheap that he wore rags and ate rotten food despite being enormously wealthy, earning him the name, “Elwes the Miser.”
• The myth of Ebenezer Lennox Scroogie: As the story goes, Dickens took a walk in a Canongate churchyard and saw a gravestone with the inscription: “EBENEZER LENNOX SCROGGIE—MEAN MAN.” This epitaph went on to inspire the character of Ebenezer Scrooge, even though the inscription actually said “meal man”—Scroogie was a corn merchant. As appealing as the story is, it’s likely a fake. There’s no evidence that Scroogie ever existed.
  [Information courtesy of CharlesDickensInfo.com, Mental Floss, History.com, and BBC.com]

About the Author

Charles Dickens was born in 1812. He attended school in Portsmouth until his father was thrown into debtors’ prison in 1824, and Dickens was sent to work in a factory—an event which later shaped the subject matter of many of Dickens’ most famous stories. Dickens became a reporter in his late teens and started publishing humorous short stories by 21. In 1836, a collection of his stories (later known as The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club) was published and had over fifteen print runs. Dickens continued his literary success with works like Oliver Twist (1838) and Nicholas Nickleby (1839) and persisted in producing major works every few years. Dickens was considered a celebrity in his time and frequently gave popular dramatic readings of his books. He died in 1870 with his last novel unfinished.

[Information courtesy of History.com]

Watch this video from Biographic to learn more about Charles Dickens.

Vocabulary

AMEND – change for the better
APPARITION – a ghostly figure
APPRENTICE – one who is learning a trade or occupation
BEDLAM – a place or situation of noisy uproar and confusion
DESTITUTE – completely impoverished
DISMAL– depressing; dreary
IDLE – avoiding work or employment
LIBERALITY – the state of being generous
MELANCHOLY – sadness of the spirit
MISER – a person who hoards wealth
PUDDING – a traditional Christmas dessert that contains plums, dried currants, almonds, raisins and/or spices. It is either steamed or boiled and served warm
RESOLUTE – firm or determined
SMOKING BISHOP – a Christmas drink of fruit and wine traditionally heated with a red hot poker