Written in just six weeks, Dickens financed the book\u2019s publication himself due to a dispute with his publishers. The price was set at five shillings, so virtually everyone could afford it, and it proved so popular that around 6,000 copies were sold in a matter of days. An immediate smash with the public, it quickly spawned a range of \u2018pirated\u2019 copies forcing Dickens into a number of legal actions to protect his creation.<\/p>\n
The writer and social critic\u2019s motives were wider than simply telling a good story and the obvious financial benefits. Dickens had recently returned from a tour of northern England, where he had witnessed the struggles of everyday life for Britain\u2019s poor<\/a>. He had also been moved by his visits to \u2018ragged schools\u2019 \u2013 free charity schools that educated destitute children. In A Christmas Carol<\/em>, Dickens found a subtle way of highlighting the plight of the poor.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly moneylender who hates Christmas and cares for nobody except himself. On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his dead business partner, Jacob Marley, who warns him that if he continues down his path of greed and selfishness, he will spend eternity in torment like Marley. Scrooge is then visited by three spirits of Christmas \u2013 past, present and future. He witnesses the hardships suffered by the family of Bob Cratchit (his underpaid clerk) and is shown what the Cratchits\u2019 future might be without Scrooge\u2019s help \u2013 poverty and the untimely death of the sickly Tiny Tim.<\/p>\n Horrified at seeing his own, unmourned death, and the fates of those around him due to his carelessness, Scrooge eventually repents. He gives money to charity, spends Christmas with his family, sends a turkey to the Cratchit family and gives Bob a pay rise. The new Scrooge is described as a good man who embodies the true spirit of Christmas. It\u2019s believed that parts of the novel were inspired by Dickens\u2019s own life: as a 12-year-old, around the time that his father was in debtors\u2019 prison<\/a>, he\u2019d been forced into work, while Tiny Tim is thought to have been based on Dickens\u2019s own nephew \u2013 who did not survive childhood.<\/p>\n Listen: Telling spooky tales at Christmastime is a very old tradition. On this podcast, folklorist and historian Francis Young explains where the idea of the ghost story originates and what it tells us about approaches to the festive period<\/strong><\/p>\n![\""Jacob\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2019\/12\/GettyImages-919002024-6f9e57f.jpg?quality=90&resize=303%2C413"\" "\\"\"Jacob\\"\/")
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