“A Christmas Carol” published on this day in 1843

It was on this day in 1843 that Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol. A year earlier, he had read a disturbing news story about child labor in England, and so he had visited Cornwall to see for himself the horrible conditions of child workers in the mines there. Then he visited free schools for poor children. By the time he was through, he was so angry that he decided to write a book exposing the terrible situation of children in poverty, and publish it at his own expense. That was A Christmas Carol in Prose, now called just A Christmas Carol.

A Christmas Carol follows the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge, a mean old miser. At the beginning of the book, his view toward Christmas is: "Every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart." And after hearing that some poor people would rather die than go to prisons or workhouses, all he can say is: "If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population." But by the end, he has taken on the role of a second father for the crippled son of a man who works for him. And he exclaims: "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody!"

In 1840s England, Christmas was enjoying a comeback. It had once been a huge, ceremonial event. But in the 17th century, the Puritans declared it illegal. Since the actual date of Christ's birth is not named in the Bible, the Puritans were suspicious of Christmas, thinking it was too pagan. A significantly toned-down version started to be celebrated again in the 18th century. But it was only in the years before Dickens published A Christmas Carol that the holiday was really taking off — partly because in 1840, Queen Victoria married a German prince, Albert, and having a German influence in the royal family helped re-popularize traditions like Christmas trees.

A Christmas Carol showed Christmas as a time for family, for simple pleasures, for gathering around the table — what we call "the Christmas spirit." It was also a time for parties, for dancing and drinking and playing games, which was dangerously close to pagan rituals in the eyes of some. But Dickens' vision of Christmas caught the imagination of readers in England and America, and it helped create the Christmas ideal that is all around us today. 

Source: The Writer’s Almanac