A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens 1812-1870 Born and lived in London, England Writer 16 Major Novels Revolutionized novel writing A civil rights leader for the poor

Debtors Prison Son of John and Elizabeth Dickens Father went into debt Parents sent to debtors prison Charles removed from school Forced to work at blacking factory to pay off parents debt

Words Used in Time

Influence on Dickens His time spent working at a blacking factory was a pivotal point in that story.  At the age of 11 young Charley Dickens was sent, by a father and mother whose finances were out of control, to earn 5 or 6 shillings a week in a boot-blacking factory, pasting labels onto pots of blacking.  After his parents were sent to debtor’s prison, he was left to wander the streets, to fend for himself, Dickens later wrote of the trauma of this time of his life, and the impact it had on shaping his character.  The impact was equally powerful in shaping the books he wrote, the causes he championed, the politics he pursued. 

Overnight Bestseller Published December 19, 1843 Sold 8,000 copies in first week Many people were illiterate People either read it or had it read to them Known as “the little book” Instant success Today more copies than any other book except the Bible

Child Labor

Working Conditions This new, brutal reality of child labor was the result of revolutionary changes in British society. The population of England had grown 64% between Dickens’ birth in 1812 and the year of the child labor report. Workers were leaving the countryside to crowd into new manufacturing centers and cities. Meanwhile, there was a revolution in the way goods were manufactured: cottage industry was upended by a trend towards workers serving as unskilled cogs laboring in the pre-cursor of the assembly line, hammering the same nail or gluing the same piece—as an 11-year-old Dickens had to do—hour after hour, day after day. Dickens read the testimony of girls who sewed dresses for the expanding market of middle class consumers; they regularly worked 16 hours a day, six days a week, rooming—like Martha Cratchit—above the factory floor. He read of 8-year-old children who dragged coal carts through tiny subterranean passages over a standard 11-hour workday.

1843 London

Dickens London

Ebenezer Scrooge

Marley the Ghost

Ghost of Christmas Past

Ghost of Christmas Present

Ghost of Christmas Future.. (yet to come)

Long Lasting Effects Made people want and learn to read Created social awareness of poverty Created social awareness of child labor Created social awareness of orphans People reacted Social classicism was identified

Influence on Christmas Not a novel about religion or Christmas, but ended up revolutionizing the holiday Christmas celebration in decline before novel Industrial revolution (work) allowed little time for workers to celebrate Dickens and his novel had more influence on Christmas than any other person except one

Oh, and…Santa Claus

Dickens says… “The holidays are a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of other people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys". This was what Dickens described for the rest of his life as the "Carol Philosophy".

Father Christmas Dickens' name had become so synonymous with Christmas that on hearing of his death in 1870 a little costermonger's girl in London asked, "Mr. Dickens dead? Then will Father Christmas die too?"