The Making of "A Christmas Carol"

Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol has been delighting audiences for a whopping 183 years! The work was published in December of 1843, with the first edition, first printing, selling out by Christmas Eve that year. The tale has become a staple work for the holiday season. 

Did you know that Charles Dickens compiled the novella in a mere six weeks? The author was under pressure following the flop of his serialized “Martin Chuzzlewit.” He hoped to follow it up with something that would earn him some profit and would appeal to a mass audience. He was under financial strain and was reported to have composed the story while on long midnight walks around London. Upon its completion in November of 1843, Dickens pitched the story to his publishers Chapman and Hall with a unique arrangement. He would take on the costs of the publishing with the agreement that he would keep the work’s profits. He was certain that the book would be a success and that arrangement would bring him out of his financial slump.

He did not, however, seem to be of a business-first mindset. He insisted on a lavish format for the work- a cinnamon-colored cloth binding with ornate gilt stamping on the spine and front, all edges gilt, with four full-page hand-colored etchings and four woodcuts by John Leech. When the preliminary copies were produced, he made further changes to endpaper colors, textual corrections, and the title page. He intended it to be a prized holiday gift, but his ideas got the better of him. Even though the work was a major success upon publication, after the publishers deducted their costs, the earnings remaining for Dickens were minimal. 

Upon the first run, Dickens’s cut after everything was a mere £137. "I had set my heart and soul upon a Thousand, clear," he wrote. The entire ordeal did not make him very much money at all- even after 15,000 copies were sold, he walked away with just £726.

Since the initial years of printing and reprinting to keep up with demand, the work has been adapted to film, stage, and music. The characters have become synonymous with the holiday season. It is certainly interesting to see how an author’s hard work and excitement about his characters and plot can get squashed by the logistics of it all! Regardless, Dickens’ legacy lives on with such reverence. He went on to produce famous works like Dombey and Son in 1848, David Copperfield in 1849, and A Tale of Two Cities in 1859 after A Christmas Carol.

Check out our 1905 edition of Dickens's A Christmas Carol, illustrated by Charles Brock, or any of our other Dickens works. We also just acquired a beautifully bound edition of Oliver Twist, which you’ll see on the website soon!