December 19: On This Day in World History … briefly
The exclamation “Bah! Humbug!” entered popular use in the English language as a retort to anything sentimental or overly festive and the name ‘Scrooge’ became used as a designation for a miser - added to the Oxford English Dictionary as such in 1982.
1843 – ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens makes its debut
‘A Christmas Carol’ is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. ‘A Christmas Carol’ recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of ‘Christmas Past’, ‘Present’ and ‘Yet to Come’. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.
Dickens wrote ‘A Christmas Carol’ during a period when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols and newer customs such as Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth and by the Christmas stories of other authors including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold.
Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, and was inspired following a visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, one of several establishments for London’s street children. The treatment of the poor and the ability of a selfish man to redeem himself by transforming into a more sympathetic character are the key themes of the story. There is discussion among academics as to whether this was a fully secular story, or if it is a Christian allegory.
Published on December 19, the first edition sold out by Christmas Eve and by the end of 1844 thirteen editions had been released. Most critics reviewed the novella favourably. The story was illicitly copied in January 1844; Dickens took legal action against the publishers, who went bankrupt, further reducing Dickens’s small profits from the publication.
He went on to write four other Christmas stories in subsequent years. In 1849 he began public readings of the story which proved so successful he undertook 127 further performances until 1870, the year of his death. ‘A Christmas Carol’ has never been out of print and has been translated into several languages; the story has been adapted many times for film, stage, opera and other media.
‘A Christmas Carol’ captured the zeitgeist of the mid-Victorian revival of the Christmas holiday. Dickens had acknowledged the influence of the modern Western observance of Christmas and later inspired several aspects of Christmas, including family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games and a festive generosity of spirit.
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
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