Things you didn’t know about “A Christmas Carol”
Posted by Josh Taylor / December 17, 2013
Everyone loves A Christmas Carol, but hardly anyone knows these ten behind-the-scenes facts about it. Here are two examples:
He started the story in October 1843 and wrote obsessively for six weeks. As Dickens wrote, he wept, laughed, and wandered around London at night “when all sober folks had gone to bed.” He finished the novella at the end of November so it could be published in time for Christmas. A Christmas Carol hit the shops on December 17, 1843, and sold out in three days.
Dickens was the first famous writer to give public readings of his work—and his first reading was A Christmas Carol. The reading took place in front of a crowd of 2000 people in the town hall of Birmingham, England, 10 years after the book was published. Dickens opened the reading by saying, “Ladies and gentleman—I have said that I bear an old love towards Birmingham and Birmingham men; let me amend a small omission, and add Birmingham women too. This ring I wear on my finger now is an old Birmingham gift, and if by rubbing it I could raise the spirit that was obedient to Aladdin’s ring, I heartily assure you that my first instruction to that genius on the spot should be to place himself at Birmingham’s disposal in the best of causes. I now have the pleasure of reading to you tonight A Christmas Carol in four staves.”
Full story at Mental Floss.
Photo credit: Fotolia
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