His plots were carefully constructed, and he often wove elements from topical events into his narratives. For example, when his wife's chiropodist expressed distress at the way Miss Mowcher in David Copperfield seemed to reflect her disabilities, Dickens improved the character with positive features. The instalment format allowed Dickens to evaluate his audience's reaction, and he often modified his plot and character development based on such feedback. His novels, most published in monthly or weekly instalments, pioneered the serial publication of narrative fiction, which became the dominant Victorian mode for novel publication. Within a few years he had become an international literary celebrity, famous for his humour, satire, and keen observation of character and society. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, education, and other social reforms.ĭickens's literary success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.īorn in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius.

He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. “A Christmas Carol” was a hit, and it enabled Dickens to pay his bills, but it wasn’t quite the cash cow it would be in an age of strictly enforced copyright laws.Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and social critic. Seven were unauthorized, though, and pirated editions of the book circulated widely as well. Within weeks there were eight different stage adaptations playing in London.

17, and its first print run of 6,000 copies had sold out by Christmas Eve.

“A Christmas Carol in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas” was published Dec. The book took Dickens only six weeks to finish, and the money flowed soon after. His sixth novel, “Martin Chuzzlewit,” was not selling well, relatives were hitting him up for loans, and he was having trouble making the rent payments on the big London house he had moved his family into a few years earlier. But he also wrote it because he needed money. Charles Dickens wrote “A Christmas Carol” in 1843 in part because he was appalled at the living conditions of England’s urban poor, especially after a visit that September to a so-called Ragged School for London slum children.

A christmas carol first edition