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The library published a fine facsimile of the manuscript in 1993, which allows you to read the text in Dickens’ handwriting, with all of his erasures, amendments and edits, side by side with the printed text.Ī first edition of A Christmas Carol costs $10,000 – $25,000 today. The manuscript of A Christmas Carol has survived and is in the Pierpoint Morgan Library in New York.

The first edition of 6000 copies was published on 19th December and was sold out in four days at 5 shillings each. He started writing the book in mid October and presented the finished manuscript to his publisher on December 2nd. After much walking and worrying, it was probably a visit in early October to Dickens’ older sister Fanny in Manchester, where she lived in fairly straitened circumstances with her husband and crippled son Fred, that gave Dickens the inspiration for A Christmas Carol. After threats to reduce Dickens’ income in light of the poor sales, he was encouraged to produce a successful book for the Christmas market of 1843.

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The genesis of the book was the rather poor sales of the serial parts of Martin Chuzzlewit, in the middle of 1843, which was causing some distress to Dickens and his publisher. These two books are shown below in their original bindings.Īlthough there are two memorable Christmas “episodes” in Pickwick, the great Dickens Christmas book was certainly A Christmas Carol, published by Chapman and Hall in December 1843. In 1877, Bracebridge Hall, a companion volume of Irving’s sketches in the same setting was published by Macmillan, also featuring wonderful illustrations by Randolph Caldecott. This book was intended to be a Christmas present, and it still makes a fine seasonal gift. The most pleasing edition of these sketches about Christmas in England is Old Christmas, which was published by Macmillan in 1876, and is gloriously illustrated by Randolph Caldecott. These writings first appeared in Washington Irving’s The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., which was first published in installments during 18. These were based on his personal experience of spending Christmas in a fine old country house close to Birmingham in Warwickshire. The American author Washington Irving wrote several short pieces describing various scenes from Christmas in England. Some, rather unkindly, have suggested that it might have been working with Dickens that drove him to his sad fate!Ĭharles Dickens was by no means the first author to look back nostalgically at the traditional English Christmas. Sadly, Seymour only provided the first few illustrations for the book, as he committed suicide soon after the start of Pickwick. This project eventually became The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, which propelled Dickens from obscurity to instant fame.

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We know that Charles Dickens knew Robert Seymour, as in 1836, that same year, Dickens had been hired by the publishers Chapman and Hall to provide the text for a series of sporting illustrations to be drawn by Seymour. The book, which was a collection of English Christmas customs, was illustrated by Robert Seymour. One interesting fact is that a book was published in London in 1836 called The Book of Christmas by Thomas K Hervey. But where did all this come from, and how did Dickens know about it? The combination of the family-centered celebration of Christmas, together with fun, feasting, drinking and above all a sense of Goodwill Towards All Men has come to epitomise the Dickensian Christmas. Here are a few of my personal favourites, with a brief commentary on them and some background on Charles Dickens and Christmas.Ĭharles Dickens is often credited with the invention of “The Traditional Christmas”, but most who have looked at this issue would agree that Dickens is mainly responsible for the general popularity of the notion of the “Traditional English Christmas”. There have been many books written and published about and for Christmas. Books about Christmas that are of interest to collectors.

Xmas old manuscript