A Christmas Carol: The Festive Classic

＂On December 19, 1843, Dickens published A Christmas Carol, one of his most timeless and beloved works. The book features the famous protagonist Ebenezer Scrooge, a curmudgeonly old miser who--with the help of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come--finds the holiday spirit. Like the earlier works by Dickens, it was intended as a social criticism, to bring attention to the hardships faced by England’s poorer classes. The book was a roaring success, selling more than 6,000 copies upon publication. Readers in England and America were touched by the book’s empathetic emotional depth. A Christmas Carol was Dickens’ most popular book in the United States as well, selling more than two million copies in the century after its first publication there＂-- Provided by publisher.

Charles Dickens (b. 1812) was a British author, journalist, and social commentator who wrote the beloved classics Oliver Twist and Great Expectations. His books were first published in monthly serial installments, which became a lucrative source of income following a childhood of abject poverty. His 15 novels, in their stark portraits of poor and working class people in the Victorian era, helped to bring about social change. Dickens died in June, 1870 at age 58, and is remembered as one of the most important and influential writers of the 19th century.

Tom Butler-Bowdon is editor of the Capstone Classics series and has written introductions to Plato’s Republic, Epictetus’s Discourses, Machiavelli’s The Prince, and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. A graduate of the London School of Economics, he is also the author of 50 Philosophy Classics, 50 Politics Classics, and 50 Psychology Classics.

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