HISTORY's Moment in Media: "A Christmas Carol's" Origins and Legacy

Dickens had long before become a highly successful writer In 1836 he39d begun publishing a series of humorous short stories first called Sketches by Boz and later The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club His popularity grew as the stories progressed For the first installment 400 copies were printed for the 15th 40000 In 1837 they were collected as a book and Dickens became a bestselling author He followed that triumph with two more Oliver Twist published in 1838 and Nicholas Nickleby published in 1839But in 1843 Dickens was in a financial bind His expenses were increasing he and his wife Catherine Hogarth were expecting their fifth child ultimately there would be nine and his latest serialized novel The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit had been a commercial disappointment He knew a successful Christmas story could be the windfall he neededThe idea that eventually became A Christmas Carol didn39t start out as that uplifting Christmas story Rather Dickens whose work often included social commentary had read a government report the spring of 1843 on child labor in a rapidly industrializing England In his own childhood his father had been sent to a debtors39 prison and young Charles had been forced to work in a factory In this new report composed from interviews with the child workers Dickens learned of girls who spent 16 hours a day sewing dresses and boys who spent 11 hours a day carrying coal through basements As homebased manufacturing gave way to massive urban factories Dickens saw the working class and especially children turning into mere cogs in the industrial process He planned to write a crusading pamphlet to be titled quotAn Appeal to the People of England on Behalf of the Poor Man39s ChildquotIn October of 1843 he traveled to Manchester an industrial city in England39s north to give a talk on the importance of education for poor children He was joined on stage by the politicians Richard Cobden and Benjamin Disraeli who would later serve as prime minister And that trip inspired him to shine a light on the plight of England39s poor not with an enraged essay but instead with a short novelDickens still understood the business of publishing His Christmas book needed to be ready in time for Christmas and so he wrote A Christmas Carol in only six weeks It was published a week before Christmas and its initial run of 6000 copies sold out immediately He wanted the book formally titled A Christmas Carol in Prose Being a Ghost Story of Christmas to land a quotsledge hammerquot blow standing up for the new working class rejecting the new mechanized view of work and arguing that employers are responsible for the wellbeing of their workers In that he succeededBut he didn39t have the financial success he39d sought While the book sold well the lush presentation he insisted upon with rich red bindings color illustrations and goldedged pages cut into profits And the subsequent Christmas books he wrote never gained such great statureBut A Christmas Carol did By the next year there had been 13 printings In 1853 Dickens started doing public readings By 1870 he39d done so 127 times Today it39s been made into movies and TV shows plays and operas And after almost 180 years it has never gone out of printClick the social buttons to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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HISTORY's Moment in Media: "A Christmas Carol's" Origins and Legacy

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HISTORY's Moment in Media: "A Christmas Carol's" Origins and Legacy

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