A Christmas Carol Dramaturgy Blog Post #3

    Christmas as we know it today was not always how the holiday was celebrated and it was not always so widely acknowledged by people in all walks of life. It wasn't until the Victorian era and the publishing of Dickens' A Christmas Carol that celebration, generosity, and festivity of all sorts were associated with the holiday. For my research on the show I dove into the evolution of Christmas throughout Dickens' life and how the novella as well as the era itself shaped the holiday as we know it.

    “While Charles Dickens did not invent the Victorian Christmas, his book A Christmas Carol is credited with helping to popularize and spread the traditions of the festival. Its themes of family, charity, goodwill, peace and happiness encapsulate the spirit of the Victorian Christmas, and are very much a part of the Christmas we celebrate today.” (Victorian Christmas)

 

Regency Era Christmas

    Late Georgian era England, or the Regency era was the time that Charles Dickens grew up. In this period Christmas was celebrated mostly in the country and with much less fanfare than we see today. Mostly Christmas was celebrated by the wealthy at their country estates by hanging greenery, depending on the part of England, you might use evergreen boughs, holly, ivy, hawthorn, rosemary, and/or Christmas Rose (hellebore). One might also use mistletoe, although it grows mostly in the western and southwestern parts of Britain. Christmas was also celebrated by attending church and having a large meal shared with as many friends and family as one could gather. The most important part of a Christmas celebration was the gathering of people, but there was not much about the holiday that set it apart from any other gathering throughout the year. Due to the holiday’s lack of popularity, the celebration did not even reach the city, as mentioned before, and those from London who did choose to celebrate often did so by visiting family in the country.

Victorian Era Christmas

    The popularity of Christmas grew dramatically under the rule of Queen Victoria, mostly due to the influence of her husband Prince Albert as he was from Germany where Christmas was a much more widely celebrated holiday. Common Christmas traditions that we know today began under their rule, and many of them were created by Dickens himself and popularized due to the success of the novel.

    “Christmas, I always look upon as a most dear happy time, also for Albert, who enjoyed it naturally still more in his happy home, which mine, certainly, as a child, was not. It is a pleasure to have this blessed festival associated with one’s happiest days. The very smell of the Christmas Trees of pleasant memories. To think, we have already 2 Children now, & one who already enjoys the sight, — it seems like a dream.”

            Entry from Queen Victoria’s journal on 24 December 1841

Victorian Christmas stockings: filled with sweet treats

    One way to celebrate Christmas that began thanks to Prince Albert’s German traditions was that of Christmas stockings. Victorian children looked forward to finding their stocking full of sweet treats and handmade presents, as was popular at the time. Upper class children would find treats like barley sugar twisted into festive shapes, one that remained popular being that of a cane, and one especially sought after treat was that of Everton Toffee, a treacle and butter mixture that is similar to our toffee today. Lower class children were more likely to receive gifts such as citrus fruit and a few nuts.

TO MAKE EVERTON TOFFEE

Get one pound of treacle, the same quantity of moist sugar and half a pound of butter. Put them in a saucepan large enough to allow of fast boiling over a clear fire. Put in the butter first and rub it well over the bottom of the saucepan, and add the treacle and the sugar, stirring together gently with a knife.

After it has boiled for about 10 minutes, ascertain if it is done, in the following way:- Have ready a basin of cold water, and drop a little of the mixture into it from the point of a knife. If it is sufficiently done, when you take it from the water it will be quite crisp.

Now prepare a large shallow tin pan, or dish, rubbed all over with butter, to prevent its adhering, and into this pour the toffee from the saucepan to get cold, when it can be easily removed. To keep it good, it should be excluded from the air.

From Cassell’s Household Guide (1869)

Victorian Christmas Dinner

“It was a regular Christmas dinner, with turkeys, Baron of Beef, Plum Pudding & Mince Pies.”

Entry from Queen Victoria’s journal 25th December 1843. 

    “Perhaps this was a regular Christmas dinner for Queen Victoria, but for her subjects the Christmas feast was a less elaborate affair. No matter what your economic circumstances a festive bird was central to Christmas dinner. During the early part of Victoria’s reign this would have meant a goose (like the one consumed by the Cratchits in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol).

    Local ‘Goose Clubs’ were established early on in the year so that poorer people could save a few pennies a week from their wages to buy their bird. If you didn’t have your own oven (which many households did not) then you could take your goose to the local baker to be cooked ready for Christmas morning.” (Sanders)

    “The turkey truly began to usurp the goose (or swan if you were royalty) from pride of place towards the end of the 19th century, particularly in middle class households. Royal Christmas feasts would include a dazzling array of dishes. These sumptuous spreads would feature a choice of soups like Mock Turtle (made from calves head – a very popular alternative to real turtle soup during the Victorian era); several fish dishes; a number of roasts including a baron of beef and boars head (a particular favourite of Prince Albert); game pies as well as plum pudding and mince pies.” (Sanders)

The Invention of the Christmas Card

    “In 1843 Henry Cole commissioned an artist to design a card for Christmas. The illustration showed a group of people around a dinner table and a Christmas message. At one shilling each, these were pricey for ordinary Victorians and so were not immediately accessible. However the sentiment caught on and many children - Queen Victoria's included – were encouraged to make their own Christmas cards. In this age of industrialization color printing technology quickly became more advanced, causing the price of card production to drop significantly. Together with the introduction of the halfpenny postage rate, the Christmas card industry took off.” (Victorian Christmas)

The Invention of the Christmas Cracker

    “The greater widespread industrialization of the country had helped to create a new middle class with a greater disposable income. Increased prosperity across Britain saw a rising market for mass-produced toys, decorations and novelty items such as the Christmas cracker. Inspired by bon bons (French sugared almonds wrapped in paper) he saw during a trip to Paris, sweetshop owner Tom Smith first invented the cracker in the 1840s.

     It wasn’t until the 1860s, when Smith perfected its explosive ‘bang’ that the Christmas cracker as we know it today became a popular seasonal staple. Along with a joke, gifts inside could range from small trinkets such as whistles and miniature dolls to more substantial items like jewellery.”(V&A) 

The Christmas Tree

    The Victorian age placed great importance on family, so it follows that Christmas was celebrated at home. For many, the new railway networks made this possible. Those who had left the countryside to seek work in cities could return home for Christmas and spend their precious days off with loved ones. Family life was epitomized by the popular Queen Victoria, her husband Albert and their nine children. One of the most important Christmas traditions, the decorated Christmas tree, was a custom introduced to Britain by Prince Albert.

    The idea of an indoor Christmas tree originated in Germany, where Albert was born. In 1848 the Illustrated London News published a drawing of the royal family celebrating around a tree bedecked with ornaments. The popularity of decorated Christmas trees grew quickly, and with it came a market for tree ornaments in bright colours and reflective materials that would shimmer and glitter in the candlelight.

Christmas Carols

    The publication of Davies Gilbert's 1823 work Some Ancient Christmas Carols, With the Tunes to Which They Were Formerly Sung in the West of England and William Sandys's 1833 collection Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern led to a growth in the form's popularity in Britain.

Direct Effects of the Novel - Christmas traditions

    While all of the traditions shaped in the Victorian era were somewhat inspired by the publication of A Christmas Carol, some traditions that are still known today were directly shaped from the novel itself.

A more general effect is the atmosphere and spirit of the holiday that has stuck around all this time. While it was always seen as a time to gather with loved ones, it was not the essential time of giving and togetherness that it has become today until Dickins made it so.

    “A Christmas Carol tapped into a long-repressed hunger for what historian Ronald Hutton calls ‘a family-centered festival of generosity’ which Dickens himself defined in the aftermath of the success of a A Christmas Carol”(McGovern):

Christmas Day … bound together all our home enjoyments, affections and hopes…

Charles Dickens What Christmas Is As We Grow Older, 1851

Merry Christmas

    While the term merry had been associated with Christmas since the 1700s it did not pick up in popularity until the almost overlapping events of Henry Cole’s first Christmas card, which had the phrase Merry Christmas printed on the front, and the publishing of A Christmas Carol. Both of these events spurred the public to begin using the phrase as a greeting and it has stuck around ever since.

“Bah! Humbug!”

    A humbug is a person or object that behaves in a deceptive or dishonest way, often as a hoax or in jest. When referring to a person, a humbug means a fraud or impostor, implying an element of unjustified publicity and spectacle. This phrase was coined by Dickens for his character Ebenezer Scrooge and became a slang term in common vernacular, however today it is most often associated with the character and novella.

Sources for this post

A Georgian Christmas: A Regency Christmas. (n.d.). Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/A-Georgian-Christmas/

A Victorian Christmas. (n.d.). Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/A-Victorian-Christmas/

Christmas, Regency Style. (n.d.). Retrieved November 07, 2020, from http://www.reginascott.com/christmas.htm

First Victorian Christmas Tree. (n.d.). Retrieved November 07, 2020, from http://www.victoriana.com/christmas/tree-99.htm

Geoffrey Rowell | Published in History Today Volume 43 Issue 12 December 1993, & Fellow, G. (n.d.). Dickens and the Construction of Christmas. Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://www.historytoday.com/archive/dickens-and-construction-christmas

Hanc, J. (2015, December 09). The History of the Christmas Card. Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-christmas-card-180957487/

Humbug. (2020, October 22). Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humbug

Kosann, M. (2019, November 26). Monica Rich Kosann. Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://www.monicarichkosann.com/blogs/journal/a-royal-love-story

McGovern, K. (2020, October 04). Did Dickens invent Christmas? Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://medium.com/@eslreading/is-charles-dickens-the-man-who-invented-christmas-9391d2bf9e8e

McNamara, R. (n.d.). How Most of Our Christmas Traditions Began In the 1800s. Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://www.thoughtco.com/the-history-of-christmas-traditions-1773799

Rex), (., & Getty), (. (2012, December 27). Charles Dickens is the REAL Father of Christmas: How the author defined our festive spirit. Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-charles-dickens-shaped-christmas-1506955

Sanders, K. (2017, January 03). How did Queen Victoria and Prince Albert popularise Christmas? Retrieved November 06, 2020, from http://blog.english-heritage.org.uk/how-did-queen-victoria-and-prince-albert-popularise-christmas/

Some ancient Christmas carols : With the tunes to which they were formerly sung in the west of England : Gilbert, Davies, 1767-1839 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming. (1970, January 01). Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://archive.org/details/SomeAncientChristmasCarols

Victorian Christmas - History of Christmas. (n.d.). Retrieved November 06, 2020, from http://www.bbc.co.uk/victorianchristmas/history.shtml

V&A · Victorian Christmas traditions. (n.d.). Retrieved November 06, 2020, from https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/victorian-christmas-traditions

An engraving depicting the maid bringing in the Christmas pudding. Illustrated by Davidson Knowles (1852-1901) a British landscape painter. Dated 19th century. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Bettmann. (n.d.). Illustration of children unpacking an enormous stocking full of toys... Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/christmas-greeting-card-illustration-of-children-unpacking-news-photo/517201934?adppopup=true

Christmas card showing a boy and girl pulling a cracker, about 1880, England. Museum no. E.2669:357-1953. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Christmas with Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, their children and Queen Victoria's mother, in 1848 (from Illustrated London News), 1848. Found in the collection of Royal Collection, London. Artist : Anonymous. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

circa 1850: Queen Victoria's Christmas tree on display on Christmas Eve at Windsor Castle. Original Publication: The Graphic - pub. 1887 By J Roberts (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Hanc, J. (2015, December 09). The History of the Christmas Card. Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-christmas-card-180957487/

Some ancient Christmas carols : With the tunes to which they were formerly sung in the west of England : Gilbert, Davies, 1767-1839 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming. (1970, January 01). Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://archive.org/details/SomeAncientChristmasCarols

VICTORIA & ALBERT DECORATE THE CHRISTMAS TREE, ILLUSTRATION FROM GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK, DECEMBER 1860.

A Christmas Carol Dramaturgy Blog Post #2

     Part of my dramaturgy presentation was analyzing the content of Dickens' novella and the adapted script that is being produced for OSU's fall audio drama. The research I did on Dickens' past helped to see why he planned to write the novel, and further research explained just how Dickens used these characters and story that are so loved by readers and audiences of the past, present, and most likely future, to get across his wish for society to change and for the most desolate of us to be treated with warmth, kindness and Christmas cheer. The character I focused on the most in my research was one Ebenezer Scrooge, as well as Dickens' use of cold and warmth throughout the story to show how greed and anger effect how we see and are seen by the world, and that we can only experience warmth when we choose to live for others.

Ebenezer Scrooge

    Dickens set out to show readers how becoming complacent to the exploitation of the poor and the young for the sake of your own gain can lead to a society of cruel and incomplete people - in this piece this is represented through the character of Scrooge. Dickens’ childhood spent in the blacking warehouse desperately trying to save money for his father and exposure to men who exploit others for profit was inspiration for the character. It is also said that upon visiting a graveyard while on a walk in Edinburgh he saw a tombstone for a man named Ebenezer Lennox Scroggie, whose job was listed as a meal man—a corn merchant; Dickens misread the inscription as "mean man" and adapted the name for his character.

    Here are some lines from the script that show Scrooge's characterization and explicitly tell us how he views money as the all important part of life.

FRED
And what of that? His wealth is of no use to him. He won’t do any good with it. He doesn’t make himself comfortable with it. And he certainly hasn’t the satisfaction of helping others
P.37

BELLE                                      

Surely you fear the world too much. All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, gain for the sake of gain, now engrosses you. Have I not? Your desire for this Idol has swallowed the man I used to know.

P.25

BELLE 

That which promised happiness when we were one in heart is fraught with such misery now that we have been split in two. How often I have thought of this, I will not say. I did not want to believe you had changed so, at first I tried not to see. But the shadow of greed had so consumed you that I could no longer recognize your face or your heart. Now that the truth is so apparent, I can release you. 

P.25

Cold/Warmth and Worldview

    Dickens uses the imagery of temperature and the weather to stand in place of the two sides of the story. Scrooge is seen as cold and dark when he is spoken of, and the world directly around him is described in the same way. This use of cold and wintery weather is a stand in for the money hungry selfishness that Dickens is describing as what is wrong with society throughout the play, it cuts him off from connecting to the world around him. The warmth is seen in the other characters who embody love, generosity, and Christmas spirit. We slowly see more warmth associated with Scrooge as the spirits lead him through the Christmases and end with him finally feeling both cold and warmth and finding joy in it.

Through the following lines we see the use of cold and warmth as it relates to Scrooge and how it changes throughout the story.

FRED

If I may now add to this story. He was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, my Uncle Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, covetous old sinner! Cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. He carried his own remarkably low temperature always about him; he iced his office in the dog-days, and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas. This fateful London night was cold, bone shatteringly cold. The fog and darkness thickened so.

P.8

BOB CRATCHIT

In this time of year of fog and piercing, searching, biting cold we all find reason for infectious joy. See here as the steeples call good people all, to church and chapel, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. We can all smell the sticks of cinnamon, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar, the moist and pulpy figs, and everything so good to eat in its Christmas dress. There is music in the air and much is right with the world that hearts are touched with spirit of goodness in mankind.

P.2

SCROOGE

Cold enough for you, Cratchit?

BOB CRATCHIT

Good morning Mr. Scrooge.

SCROOGE

Is it? You don’t look particularly “good” on this bleak and biting winter day.

BOB CRATCHIT

Why ‘tis the Christmas season. There is warmth to be had in this city. Why, there

isn’t a merrier time in all the year. I’ll think on that to warm myself.

P.3

GENTLEMAN

They are, still. I wish I could say they were not! As they scarcely furnish good cheer of mind and body to the multitude, a few of us each season endeavor to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink and means of warmth.

P.7

FRED

That night began like so many cold, winter nights as Uncle Scrooge gathered his books and his ledgers, cold lifeless things and locked up his miserable counting house. The pitiful fire had died out hours before, not that Scrooge would take notice of the dismal nip in the air. He moved out into the town and down the foggy streets to his home, a grey miserable place that had once belonged to his deceased partner.

P.9

FRED

The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.

P.10

Here we see the first sign of warmth associated near Scrooge with the arrival of the first spirit, and it continues to grow as the remaining spirits visit Scrooge and show him each Christmas timeline.

Scrooge turns to his side to go back to sleep and suddenly the room floods with bright shimmering light, accompanied with a warm chorus of voices. The 1st SPIRIT appears beside Scrooge, and giggles in a childlike way.

P.15

SCROOGE

 It’s more than that, Spirit. Your fellow spirit showed me things I did not wish to see. I felt a coldness in my bones and in my heart. It is there I lack the courage to feel it again. 

P.28

2nd SPIRIT 

Now Scrooge, you have simply forgotten how to feel the cold, haven’t you? Or the warmth for that matter. Rest assured you cannot perceive one without the other. Come with me to share in the spirit of the season! 

P.28

2nd SPIRIT 

Drink Scrooge! This is no ordinary potable – but the spirit of all humankind. The warmth, generosity, and conviviality of this season

P.29

2nd SPIRIT produces the cup again and SCROOGE drinks deeply, smacking his lips and for once feeling rather warm inside.

P.31

PETER 

There we go! Let’s get this fire blazing. 

P.31

2nd SPIRIT 

There is much. Around the city and around the world, people feast together. Golden, crisp turkeys, red apples, pies and puddings dusted with sugar. Bellies are full and spirits are high. Glasses are raised and laughter is heard over and over in rooms and halls. Do you not feel the warmth in the air? It rises above the cold and the frost and enters the hearts of so many

The Spirit and Scrooge move through the space and see families sitting celebrating Christmas together, warm around fires. They stop and look out into the darkness.

P.36

2nd SPIRIT

 It is a place where miners live, who labor in the bowels of the earth, but they know me. See! See how the light warms them, see how cheerful the company is assembled round the fire. Dressed in their finest holiday attire, they celebrate together sharing what little they have as if they were the wealthiest family in the world.

P.36

SCROOGE

So cold. Where are we now?

The raspy breath of the SPIRIT answers him.

P.51

    While Scrooge is presented to the readers/audience originally as a cold unfeeling man, what Dickens hoped to get across was that people are capable of change once they recognize this coldness inside themselves. We see this foreshadowed when young Scrooge is visited by his sister Fanny and she mentions the change she has seen in their father.

SCROOGE 

My father, well – he had other priorities and . . . I had to get my schooling. Education is a priority! 

P.17

FANNY 

Father is so much kinder than he used to be that home is like Heaven! He has changed, Ebenezer, changed for the good. He had been ever so much more cheerful that I drew up the courage to ask him, once more, if you might come home and he said yes! He sent me in a coach to bring you!

P.18

    We start to see this recognition in Scrooge when the spirits use his own previous comments regarding the less fortunate against him. In this scene when Scrooge has just seen the Christmases of today the 2nd Spirit introduces him to Ignorance and Want.

2nd SPIRIT 

They belong to Humankind. And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers and mothers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both and all of their degree. But most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is doom unless the writing is erased. 

SCROOGE 

But have they no refuge or resource? Something must be done! 

2nd SPIRIT 

Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

P.45

    Once Scrooge begins to recognize the coldness within him, he is shown how it will affect others if it continues when visited by the third spirit. This ghost shows Scrooge what Christmas yet to come will look like if he continues as he has, and he sees how those around him begin to take on the same selfish and money hungry attributes that he holds. Here we see people from his present life clinging to his possessions in hopes to sell them, and feeling no remorse for his death because of how he was in his life.

CHARWOMAN

 You’re too slow, Mrs. Dilber! Ha! Every person has a right to take care of themselves, he always did. Who’s the wiser. Who’s the worse for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, that’s for certain.

MRS. DILBER

 I certainly shan’t hold my hand when I can get anything in it by reaching it out for the sake of such a man as he was. I promise you that, Joe. 

P.55

    Scrooge finally sees himself for who he truly is when visiting the Christmas yet to come. He is told of a cruel and unfeeling man whose death was mourned by no one, this man seems to Scrooge to deserve this fait. Upon realizing that he is indeed that man he is struck with not only the realization that he must change to save himself, but that he must change for others. He is faced with the outcome of a life spent exploiting those around him and not caring for the welfare of others. He sees how this will not only doom him to a fate like Marley’s, but will end in the unhappiness of all those around him, as it did in his life, but he had chosen not to see it.

SCROOGE

Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if preserved in, they must

lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Isn’t that so, Spirit?

The future is not written. It cannot be. Say it thus with what you show me!

P.56

SCROOGE 

Good Spirit! Please assure me that I yet may change these shadows! I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future! The Spirits shall all stay with me and I shall not shut out the lessons that they teach. I beg you, tell me that I may sponge away the writing on this stone! 

P.56

Scrooge is Changed!

    When Scrooge has been faced with the realities of who he is becoming and how he is affecting the world in such a negative way, he realizes how much he needs to change. We finally see the idea of warmth associated with him, along with the cold, and we see him acknowledge the potential within himself to live the way he saw Mr. Fezziwig do so, the first place in his past where he encountered the generosity, kindness, and love that are associated with this warmth.

MRS. DILBER

 He dressed himself in “all his best” and, giddy as a school boy, he bounded down his staircase to greet the world, crisp and fresh with snow and warmed by friendly faces.

P.59

SCROOGE

 It isn’t that. It isn’t that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. His power lies in words and looks, in things so slight and insignificant that they are impossible to count. The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it had cost a fortune –

P.24

(In reference to Mr. Fezziwig)

“His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.”

    We see Scrooge’s obsession with wealth and gain take away his family, his chance at love with Belle, friendships, enjoyment of everyday pleasures such as food, music, home, and his possessions, as well as warmth in general, all things that Dickens so strongly associated with Christmas. Scrooge changes when he learns that money or “gain for the sake of gain” is not life’s sole purpose and that he must prioritize the qualities seen in characters such as the Fezziwigs, Belle, his nephew Fred, and The Cratchits, all of which center around caring for others.

    Dickens wanted to make his point about the state of his world through a Christmas story because he didn’t want to portray positive social change as an all encompassing ordeal. He valued this himself, but also enjoyed reading, deserts, traveling, and spending the holidays with his family. He wanted to present change in a way that was digestible for the public, and would show that you can take part in all of these things at once, but would give them a sense of urgency to help others nonetheless. The story of Scrooge’s change of heart that has remained popular during the Christmas season for decades not only promoted social change, but also shaped our idea of the Christmas season. 

A Christmas Carol Dramaturgy Blog Post #1

     My name is Hanna Foshay and I was tasked with the job of being the dramaturg for Oregon State University's fall audio production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. This was my first time taking on the role of dramaturg but as an avid researcher and theatre artist I was excited about the task at hand. I will be writing four blog posts outlining the research I have done on both Charles Dickens and the story itself and I hope that it gives deeper insight to those who have loved the story, new readers of the classic, and those who listen to OSU's fantastic production and wish to know more about Dickens and/or the classic holiday tale that we all have come to see as a staple for the holiday season. 

    In this post I will be discussing Dickens' life leading up to the publication of A Christmas Carol, as well as his inspiration for the novel and the social tone surrounding issues such as poverty and child labor that inspired Dickens to pen the original novella.

Charles Dickens

    Charles Dickens, born February 7 1812, said himself that he had an idyllic childhood, growing up in various homes in England with his parents and seven siblings (two of whom did not make it to adulthood), living well beyond their means and allowing the children to attend a variety of well established schools, Dickens spent most of his time reading and rereading countless novels such as Robinson Crusoe and Arabian Nights, and playing outside with his siblings. During this time the family moved around a lot for John Dickens’ job, and while the family was not the most well to do, they taught their children that if they worked hard enough they could be anything they wanted, and even be rich enough to purchase a grand home if that was what they wanted. This time of family bonding, rich education, and living above their means all ended when Dickens’ father, John Dickens was sent to the Marshalsea debtors prison in 1822, under the Insolvent Debtors Act of 1813, accompanied by his wife and youngest children until he could pay back his debt of £40 and 10 shillings.

    Because John had no way of making money while in the debtors prison Charles Dickens was sent to work at Warren’s Blacking Warehouse making six shillings a week in an effort to pay off his father’s debt, at the young age of twelve. Here he worked ten hour days applying labels to pots of boot blacking under harsh conditions with several other boys his age. The room they worked in was filled with fumes and the men in charge treated them harshly. Here was where his anger began for the harsh conditions the poor and children were forced to work under, and where he took much inspiration from for his future novels. The change in circumstances gave him what his biographer, Michael Slater, describes as a "deep personal and social outrage", which heavily influenced his writing and outlook.

Charles Dickens from John Forster’s The Life of Charles Dickens 

    "The blacking-warehouse was the last house on the left-hand side of the way, at old Hungerford Stairs. It was a crazy, tumble-down old house, abutting of course on the river, and literally overrun with rats. Its wainscoted rooms, and its rotten floors and staircase, and the old grey rats swarming down in the cellars, and the sound of their squeaking and scuffling coming up the stairs at all times, and the dirt and decay of the place, rise up visibly before me, as if I were there again. The counting-house was on the first floor, looking over the coal-barges and the river. There was a recess in it, in which I was to sit and work. My work was to cover the pots of paste-blacking; first with a piece of oil-paper, and then with a piece of blue paper; to tie them round with a string; and then to clip the paper close and neat, all round, until it looked as smart as a pot of ointment from an apothecary's shop. When a certain number of grosses of pots had attained this pitch of perfection, I was to paste on each a printed label, and then go on again with more pots. Two or three other boys were kept at similar duty down-stairs on similar wages. One of them came up, in a ragged apron and a paper cap, on the first Monday morning, to show me the trick of using the string and tying the knot. His name was Bob Fagin; and I took the liberty of using his name, long afterwards, in Oliver Twist."

    Dickens continued work here, growing more and more unhappy, until the death of his grandmother, Elizabeth Dickens, who left Dickens’ father £450 allowing him to leave the debtors prison. However Charles Dickens’s mother wished for him to continue working at the Blacking Warehouse, to his great dismay, which is credited to be where his distrust towards women and poor relationship with his mother originally came from, he stated "I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being sent back.”

Following his time in the blacking warehouse

    Dickens studied at Wellington House Academy in Camden Town, which he did not find to be a good school. During his time here he lived with various family friends, and attended the theatre quite often, noting that for several years he would attend every single day. This is where his dream of being an actor blossomed, he spent much of his free time doing impersonations of the actors he saw in the theatre (his favorite being Charles Matthews), and landed an acting audition at Covent Garden, where the manager George Bartley and the actor Charles Kemble were to see him. While Dickens prepared meticulously for his audition, he fell sick the day of and did not attend the audition, this was where his pursuit of acting ended, but he remained a performer and storyteller for life. After this he began work as a freelance reporter for four years before setting out to begin his career as a writer.

1843

    Dickens’ writings were renowned for reflecting topical social issues, most often the plights of the poor, especially children. In 1843 celebrating Christmas was growing in popularity, due to the influence of Queen Victoria and the German traditions of Prince Albert, which combined with the publishing of the Second Report of the Children's Employment Commission inspired Dickens to write A Christmas Carol. 

The Second Report of the Children's Employment Commission

    The Second Report of the Children's Employment Commission was regarding the ages, hours, and wages, of the children working in warehouses and mines in England and Ireland at the time, it revealed that children often as young as five years old were working in the worst of conditions in places of work such as mines, paper mills, bleaching and dying facilities, and other locations for manual labor. Upon reading this Dickens planned to publish an inexpensive political pamphlet tentatively titled, An Appeal to the People of England, on behalf of the Poor Man's Child, but changed his mind, deferring the pamphlet's production until the end of the year. A month after the report was published Dickens wrote to Dr. Southwood Smith who was one of the commissioners in charge of the pamphlets publication, regarding his new plan of retaliation saying-

"you will certainly feel that a Sledge hammer has come down with twenty times the force—twenty thousand times the force—I could exert by following out my first idea".

    Dickens got this new idea while speaking at a fundraising speech on 5 October 1843 at the Manchester Athenaeum. Dickens urged workers and employers to join together to combat ignorance with educational reform, and realized in the days following that the most effective way to reach the broadest segment of the population with his social concerns about poverty and injustice was to write a deeply felt Christmas narrative rather than polemical pamphlets and essays. 

Publication of A Christmas Carol - 1843

    “Dickens began writing A Christmas Carol in October and finished the story, which came in at less than 30,000 words, six weeks later. Writing a full story in this manner was new for him, as his other novels had been serialized over months and years. The method may have helped him craft a stronger story.” (Kettler)

    Dickens’ passion when it came to social issues is conveyed in all of his novels, and he set out with each new piece to show the realities of the poorest and most destitute members of society through the eyes of the common man. He wanted to create compassion in his readers by not just showing these realities for others but making them see what life would be like if it were to happen to them. Dickens never claimed to know how to fix the problems in the world, but sought to make people aware of the need for change.

    Dickens’ rush to release the novella in time for Christmas (published 19 December 1843), and his specific desire for the cover to be bound in red cloth with gilt-edged pages, and to include copies of five original black and white illustrations and three color prints with each book caused him to make very little upon the initial publication, even though the first run of 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve and the novel continued to sell out well into 1844. Dickens only made £230 (equal to £23,000 in 2020 pounds) rather than the £1,000 (equal to £99,000 in 2020 pounds) that he expected due to the high production cost. 

Sources 

Second report of the Commissioners : Trades and manufactures. (n.d.). Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.li53bx

First edition of A Christmas Carol. (2014, April 24). Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/first-edition-of-a-christmas-carol

Kettler, S. (2019, December 09). Charles Dickens Wrote 'A Christmas Carol' in Only Six Weeks. Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://www.biography.com/news/charles-dickens-a-christmas-carol

Sanders, K. (2017, January 03). How did Queen Victoria and Prince Albert popularise Christmas? Retrieved November 06, 2020, from http://blog.english-heritage.org.uk/how-did-queen-victoria-and-prince-albert-popularise-christmas/

Gibbons, D. (2019, May 12). What the Dickens? Retrieved November 12, 2020, from https://www.rtmworld.com/what-the-dickens/

Rosenwald, M. (2019, December 21). The wrenching reason Charles Dickens wrote 'A Christmas Carol'. Retrieved November 07, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/12/21/wrenching-reason-charles-dickens-wrote-christmas-carol/

Charles Dickens (1812-70) giving his last public reading at St James's Hall, London, 5 March 1870. He read extracts from A Christmas Carol and the trial scene from Pickwick Papers. His first reading was in 1858. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images