Christmas carol

Author: Charles Dickens
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2000-05-01
Features: Charles Dickens was born in 1812. A Christmas Carol was first published in 1843, when Dickens was thirty-one and already a very successful novelist. At that time, he had completed The Pickwick Papers, the novels Oliver Twist, Nicolas Nickleby, and The Old Curiosity Shop. However, for Dickens, becoming an English best-selling author was not easy in his time. Charles was the son of a government clerk. His father was extravagant with money, much like Mr. Micawber in Dickens's David Copperfield (published in 1849), who was eventually imprisoned for debt. In Chapter 4 of this book, Caroline's husband is afraid of being sent to prison because he owes money to a heartless person. In today's eyes, it seems absurd that a person could be sent to prison simply for being unable to pay their debts, but that was the law in Dickens's time. Perhaps Dickens's books helped to highlight the absurdity and cruelty of this practice, because Dickens could make his readers not only weep but also laugh at such foolish behavior. However, for Dickens himself, the consequences of his father's imprisonment were deeply unfortunate. When his father was imprisoned, Charles was only twelve years old and had to go out to work to support himself. The job was very unsatisfactory, with poor pay and conditions. For us, the misfortunes Dickens experienced in his early years became the stories of the writer who deeply understood the poor and their hardships. He empathized with them, and his works may have done more than anything else to improve their lives. After this book was printed, it was prepared for the Christmas holiday of 1843, and it was celebrated as joyfully as Scrooge does in the last chapter of the book. The book had a gilt-red cover and was priced at five shillings, achieving great success. By Christmas Eve, six thousand copies had been sold, and orders continued to pour in from all over the country.