1. Charles Dickens and Background

2. Charles Dickens and Background
Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812.
Dickens' father, John, was a kind and likable man, but he was financially irresponsible, piling up tremendous debts throughout his life.
When Dickens was nine, his family moved to London.
At twelve, his father was arrested and sent to debtors' prison.
Dickens' mother moved seven of their children into prison with their father but arranged for Charles to live alone outside the prison, working with other child laborers at a hellish job pasting labels on bottles in a blacking warehouse.
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3. Charles Dickens and Background
The months Dickens spent away from his family was very traumatic.
After his father was released from prison, Dickens returned to school, eventually becoming a law clerk.
He went on to serve as a court reporter before taking his place as one of the most popular English novelists of his time.
At age 25, Dickens completed his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, which met with great success.
This started his career as an English literary celebrity, during which he produced such masterpieces as Great Expectations, David Copperfield, and A Tale of Two Cities

4. Charles Dickens and Background
Dickens' beloved novella A Christmas Carol was written in 1843, with the intention of drawing readers' attention to the plight of England's poor.
In the tale, Dickens stealthily combines a somewhat indirect description of hardships faced by the poor with a heart-rending, sentimental celebration of the Christmas season.
The calloused character of the apathetic penny-pinching Ebenezer Scrooge, who opens his heart after being confronted by three spirits, remains one of Dickens' most widely recognized and popular creations.

5. Charles Dickens and Background
Nostalgia
In the early 1840s, Dickens was an established journalist and an up-and- coming novelist.
A Christmas Carol was inspired in part by his reminiscences of childhood between 1812 and 1820, which were among the coldest years of the century.
He had also been entertained by the memories of his father, John Dickens, who had lived at the aristocratic Crewe Hall as a boy.
These images of opulent festive celebrations must be seen as nostalgic due to the fact they celebrate the happy parts of Dickens's childhood.
Charley Dickens said, “My father was always at his best at Christmas.” Charles Dickens loved to celebrate Christmas. His favorite time during the holidays was Twelfth Night, the feast of the Epiphany.

6. Charles Dickens and Background
Nostalgia (cont)
The Cratchit family is based on Dickens’ childhood home life. He lived in poor circumstances in a “two up two down” four roomed house which he shared with his parents and five siblings.
Like Peter Cratchit, young Charles, the eldest boy, was often sent to pawn the family’s goods when money was tight. Like many poor families the Cratchit’s had nothing in which to roast meat. They relied on the ovens of their local baker which were available on Sundays and Christmas when the bakery was closed.

7. Charles Dickens and Background
Social Conscience
Established as a writer with a social conscience since Oliver Twist, Dickens uses the story of A Christmas Carol to depict the plight of the poor in England.
The 1840s were known as the Hungry Forties, a period of economic depression in Britain related to bad harvests. High food prices caused widespread poverty among the urban poor, which Dickens sought to portray in the novella.
Early in 1843, as a response to a government report on the abuse of child laborers in mines and factories, Dickens vowed he would strike a “sledge-hammer blow on behalf of the Poor Man’s Child.” That sledge-hammer was A Christmas Carol.

8. Charles Dickens and Background
Dickens’s Life When Writing A Christmas Carol
Late in 1842 or early in 1843 Dickens begins work on Martin Chuzzlewit.
Dickens begins work on A Christmas Carol in October of 1843.  It is published during the holiday season of that year.
On January 15, 1844 Francis Jeffery (Frank) Dickens, the third son of Charles Dickens, is born.

9. Charles Dickens and Background
Popularity of  A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol was the most successful book of the 1843 holiday season.  By Christmas it sold six thousand copies and it continued to be popular into the new year.  Eight stage adaptations were in production within two months of the book’s publication.
One literary critic called A Christmas Carol a “national institution”.  Dickens’ friend and fellow author, William Makepeace Thackeray,  was quick to correct the critic and call the book a “national benefit”.
The book is as popular today as it was over 150 years ago.  Charles Dickens, through the voice of Scrooge, continues to urge us to honor Christmas in our hearts and  try to keep it all the year.

10. Charles Dickens and Background
Ragged Schools  
Dickens was involved in charities and social issues throughout his entire life.  At the time that he wrote A Christmas Carol he was very concerned with impoverished children who turned to crime and delinquency in order to survive.
“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want.”
Dickens, as well as others, thought that education could provide a way to a better life for these children.  The Ragged School movement put these ideas into action.  The schools provided free education for children in the inner-city.  The movement got its name from the way the children attending the school were dressed.  They often wore tattered or ragged clothing.

11. Charles Dickens and Background
Dickens Wrote A Christmas Carol as a Form of Protest
Beyond his personal reasons for writing A Christmas Carol, Dickens felt a strong need to comment on the enormous gap between the rich and poor in Victorian Britain.
While thinking of the plight of exploited child workers he conceived the idea for A Christmas Carol.
Dickens wanted the book to be available by Christmas.