Published in 1843, A Christmas Carol is the story of a transformational Christmas Eve in the life of Ebenezer Scrooge, a hard-hearted miser living in London during the Victorian period. Moved by governmental reports on the condition of the working poor in England, and by a recent trip to Manchester in support of a school for laboring workers, Dickens composed A Christmas Carol in only six weeks, and the story was on the shelves as a book that December. It embodies a serious yet humorous critique of the treatment of the poor at that time, and is laced with a rich body of allusions to Dickens' time and place.
The novel was very popular when it was published. Dickens' first printing sold...
