Today, on December 19, 1843 Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol for the victims of the Industrial Revolution that occurred in October of 1843

Dickens was the most famous writer in the 1800 century, and one of the best selling authors of all time. He had made five Christmas based books, and  A Christmas Carol was his first. There were over 6,000 copies of A Christmas Carol sold. This story had a major influence on our idea of an old fashioned English Christmas. The book was very moral and was centered around one character. Ebenezer Scrooge.

Ebenezer Scrooge was a horrible old man who hated Christmas. To teach him a lesson The Ghosts of Past, Present, and Future visited him to show Scrooge what his actions have done. In the end Scrooge changes and everything was great again.

When Dickens was little it was unfashionable to celebrate this holiday. In the 1830’s the amount of Englishmen that did celebrate Christmas was small. The people who did celebrate Christmas would have large family gatherings enlivened by the drinking os wassail. Wassail is a type of festive alcohol.

The whole reason he wrote A Christmas Carol was for the victims of the Industrial Revolution that happened in October of that year. Dickens said he would “strike the heaviest blow in my power”. It was also inspired by his childhood reminiscences from the years of 1812 through 1820.