Cold Open

It’s March 1824 in London, England.

A 12-year-old Charles Dickens bangs on the gate of the Marshalsea Prison, then steps back and waits for the jailer to come to the door.

A few weeks ago, Charles’s father John was arrested. He had fallen into debt, and in line with British law, his creditors had him locked up in a debtors’ prison, along with his wife and children. The entire family is behind bars—except Charles, who’s deemed old enough to go out and work to pay off his family’s debts. Charles spends ten hours in a factory every day, pasting labels on jars of boot polish, but before his long shift begins, he comes here to the Marshalsea to eat breakfast with his family.

After a few moments, the jailer unlocks the heavy door and allows Charles to enter. Charles doesn’t need further guidance - he knows the damp hallways of the Marshalsea all too well now.

He knows not to be startled by the cackles of the old men driven mad by their long incarceration. And he knows where to edge closer to the wall to avoid the grasp of starving debtors who reach out from their dark cells, begging for bread. Still, it’s a relief when Charles reaches the end of the hallway and enters his family’s room. It’s early, and Charles’s mother and younger siblings are still huddled together asleep in their tiny bed. But Charles’s father John is up, and he gives Charles a thin smile.

He pushes a bowl toward his son and Charles peers inside. It’s gruel—a watery oatmeal with little taste and less nutritional value, but it’s all his father can afford.

So, Charles prods at it with his spoon before reluctantly forcing it down. Charles knows it’s not his father’s fault that the family is here. They’ve all been trapped by a system that punishes people who fall into poverty. But Charles can’t wait for the day when he’s earned enough money to rescue his family from prison and never have to eat gruel again.

Charles Dickens will grow up to become Britain’s most famous writer and a wealthy man, but he will never forget his humble beginnings. He’ll be determined to help those less fortunate than him—and he’ll do it most effectively through his writing. Charles will pen several stories about the suffering of the poor in Britain—but among the most popular and enduring will be a novel about an old miser haunted by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, a novel that was published for the first time on December 19th, 1843.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is December 19th, 1843: Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Act One

It’s early 1832 at the Houses of Parliament in London, eight years after John Dickens' family was incarcerated in a debtors’ prison.

Now 20-year-old Charles Dickens takes a seat in the front row of the spectators’ gallery above the House of Lords. When he’s settled, he produces a notepad and pencil from his bag. He’s just about ready when Earl Grey, the Prime Minister, rises from his seat and addresses the chamber.

A few months after Charles’s father John was imprisoned at the Marshalsea, his grandmother died. The money she left in her will was enough to pay off John’s debts, and the Dickens family was released from prison. 12-year-old Charles resumed his education, more determined than ever to make the most of his schooling. And after excelling at his studies, Charles got a job as a junior law clerk, where he learned how to write in shorthand before leaving to become a freelance reporter.

So now, as the prime minister speaks, Charles transcribes every word. Earl Grey’s government is battling to change the law and extend the right to vote to hundreds of thousands of people who have been so far excluded from the political process. It’s the biggest change to the British electoral system for decades, and as politicians debate the measure in fiery speeches, it’s the perfect time for Charles to cut his teeth as a reporter. But Charles has ambitions that go beyond simply recording other people’s speeches. He wants to write original work of his own.

So during breaks in the Parliamentary schedule, he spends time working on short stories and submitting them to literary magazines. Eventually, his hard work pays off. In 1833, Charles’s first short story is published in a London periodical. And three years after that, a collection of his work as a journalist is released under the title Sketches by Boz. It’s enough of a success that publisher Chapman and Hall commissions Charles to write a longer piece for them.

This publisher has secured the rights to a series of popular comic illustrations depicting the members of a shooting club. Chapman and Hall wants Charles to write a novel that connects them. The idea is to publish the illustrations alongside two to three chapters of the book each month. That way, they hope customers will keep coming back to find out what happens next.

Charles knows nothing about shooting clubs, but that doesn’t stop him from leaping at the opportunity. The story becomes known as The Pickwick Papers. At first, though, sales are disappointing. The adventures of the Pickwick Shooting Club don’t seem to appeal to London’s readers. But the novel’s monthly publication schedule means that Charles can adapt the story as he goes, and in the fourth installment, he introduces a charismatic new character.

The quick-witted cockney shoe shiner and valet Sam Weller quickly captures the hearts of London’s readers. He transforms The Pickwick Papers into a publishing phenomenon. And sales of each monthly installment increase from a few hundred to over 40,000 as new readers flock to get their hands on the latest chapters. And thanks to Charles’s addictive writing, the tables turn in his partnership with the publisher. At the beginning of the project, Charles was adapting his story to fit existing pictures. But now Charles is writing whatever he wants, and it’s the illustrations that are changed to match.

Then, as he nears the end of work on The Pickwick Papers, Charles signs a deal to write several more novels that will also be published in monthly installments. Oliver Twist is the first. Beginning in February 1837, it tells the story of an orphan raised in a workhouse who joins a London gang of pickpockets. Nicholas Nickleby comes next - serialized between 1838 and 1839. That’s followed by The Old Curiosity Shop, released between 1840 and 1841. All three novels follow characters who are plunged into poverty. And all three are just as popular as The Pickwick Papers.

By now, Charles is Britain’s best-selling writer, and, soon, his fame even reaches across the Atlantic. In 1842, he boards a steamship and embarks on a lucrative six-month speaking tour of America. Charles hoped to find a more equal and fair society in the United States. But he’s left horrified that the evil of slavery is still permitted in the so-called land of the free.

At the end of the speaking tour, Charles will return home set on doing more for his fellow men. In his eyes, if slavery is a stain on America, then poverty is just as deep a stain on Britain. And he will be determined to do all he can to wipe it out.

Act Two

It’s early November 1842 in the village of Botallack in Cornwall, England, five years after the publication of The Pickwick Papers.

Charles Dickens, now 30 years old, grips the side of a swaying metal cage as it descends down a mine shaft. The noise of the chain means that it’s impossible to converse with the miner who’s guiding Charles today, so he just smiles weakly as the last of the daylight disappears above him, and the cage is lowered into darkness.

Over the past few decades, Britain has undergone an economic transformation known as the Industrial Revolution. Jobs that were previously carried out in the home like textile weaving have been consolidated into giant factories. Mines now dot the British landscape, digging for valuable resources like coal, or here in Cornwall, tin. This Industrial Revolution is making the country rich. But it has a dark side. While the aristocracy, the business owners, and the growing middle class are doing well, the workers this revolution depends upon haven’t reaped the same benefits. Instead, they toil for long hours in terrible conditions for wages that are barely enough to live on. But the working classes have a champion in Britain’s most famous novelist, and, a few days ago, Charles arrived in Cornwall to see for himself how people in England’s most remote county really live and work.

At the bottom of the mineshaft, Charles’s guide hands him a lantern and they set off down one of the tunnels. After a few minutes of walking, the miner explains that they’re now underneath the Atlantic Ocean, where the richest deposits of tin can be found. Then, they come to a wooden door blocking the tunnel. The miner knocks and it opens from the other side—and when it does Charles is shocked to find a small boy sitting in the darkness. The miner explains that the door helps to ventilate the mine, ensuring that the air is good to breathe. And it’s the boy’s job to open and close the door when mine carts approach.

Charles squats down and asks the child his age. The boy answers that he’s six years old. And then, Charles asks why he doesn’t have a light. The boy replies that he must pay for any candles that he uses, so he prefers to sit in the dark—although that makes it hard not to fall asleep.

Charles is horrified by the penny-pinching cruelty inflicted on this boy. And nothing else he sees underground makes him feel any better. As Charles continues his tour, he sees exhausted men swinging pickaxes, smashing rocks, and hauling carts full of ore. Their bodies are hunched and scarred, and so engrained with dirt that it seems no amount of soap or scrubbing would ever make them clean again.

By the time he’s on the surface, Charles has decided he must try somehow to help the miners of Cornwall, and others like them across the country. He returns to London and starts writing a political pamphlet, hoping to pressure the government to introduce new laws that will reform working conditions and increase pay. But when he’s finished writing, Charles begins to doubt whether his dry pamphlet will have much of an effect. His first job was to write reports on political debates in the Houses of Parliament, but only a handful of people ever read them. In contrast, Charles’s fictional works are read by millions.

So, in October 1843, Charles puts the political pamphlet aside and begins work on a new novel, one that he hopes will expose the cruel inequality that exists in Britain. A Christmas Carol follows Ebenezer Scrooge, a wealthy and selfish businessman who’s visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve. Through their intervention, Scrooge is transformed from a cruel tyrant who doesn’t care about his employees into a kind and generous benefactor.

But when he submits the book to his publisher Chapman and Hall, Charles runs into a problem. The first few installments of Charles’s latest novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, haven’t sold well, and the bosses at Chapman and Hall are so concerned that they’ve asked Charles to repay part of the cash advance they gave him for the book. This poor reception of Martin Chuzzlewit means that the last thing Chapman and Hall want right now is another new Dickens novel to promote.

But Charles is convinced that A Christmas Carol is his most important work so far. So, he offers his publishers a compromise. He’ll personally pay for them to print the novel. The financial risk will be all his own. But by gambling his wealth on the success of the book, Charles Dickens will endanger the comfortable life he’s built for himself, and, if A Christmas Carol fails, he will face being plunged back into the grinding poverty he escaped years before.

Act Three

It’s the morning of December 19th, 1843, in London, two months after Charles Dickens sat down to write A Christmas Carol.

As light snow begins to settle on the streets, Charles wraps his coat tighter around his body and hurries along the sidewalk. His destination isn’t far. Charles is heading to the nearest bookstore, eager to see whether his latest novel has made it onto the shelves.

Charles spent six weeks writing A Christmas Carol, but that meant his publisher had little time to get the tale printed in time for Christmas and when Charles received the first edition, he was disappointed. He had imagined the endpapers would be a festive green color. But instead, they had come out a dull shade of olive. Charles insisted that the endpapers be swapped for yellow - and since he was paying for the print run, his publishers agreed. But those corrections were only completed two days ago, and Charles now wants to see whether the books have made it to bookstores in time for today’s official publication date.

A brass bell rings as Charles enters the store, and its owner smiles at the sight of his most famous customer. The bookseller points to a pile of books bound in red cloth: the very first copies of A Christmas Carol. Charles opens one up. The new yellow endpapers give the novel the perfect festive feel, and while Charles is admiring the book, the shop owner tells him that the pile on the table was originally twice the size - because he’s already sold half his stock in just a few hours.

This bookstore isn’t the only one that’s running out. All across London the book is flying off shelves, and, by Christmas Eve, the entire print run of 6,000 copies have sold out. Charles Dickens’ gamble has paid off.

A Christmas Carol will remain in print from that moment on. And just as Charles hoped, the book will shine a spotlight on inequality and poverty in Britain. It will help popularize the reform movement, and, in the years that follow, the British government will pass several laws giving new protections to workers.

But the story of the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge will continue to resonate with people long after the Victorian Age. A Christmas Carol remains today a staple of the festive holidays in Britain and across the world. Whether it's through the book itself, or its countless movie and stage adaptations, the message of Charles Dickens’ story remains just as moving and inspirational as it was when the novel was first published on December 19th, 1843.

Outro

Next on History Daily. December 20th, 1860. South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the Union, sparking the American Civil War.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Mollie Baack.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Edited by Dorian Merina.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.