SOURCE: “Dickens and the Construction of Christmas,” in History Today, Vol. 43, December, 1993, pp. 17–24.

In the following essay, Rowell underscores the powerful religious and social overtones of A Christmas Carol, particularly the revival of Christmas traditions.

One hundred and fifty years ago, in October 1843, Charles Dickens began the writing of one of his most popular and best-loved books, A Christmas Carol. It was written in six weeks and finished by the end of November, being fitted in in the intervals of writing the monthly parts of Martin Chuzzlewit, a work which was causing him some financial anxiety because the public did not seem to have taken to it as readily as to his earlier serials. A Christmas Carol would, he hoped, bring a better financial return.

John Forster, Dicken's biographer, noted how the story, once conceived, gripped Dickens. ‘He wept over it, and laughed, and wept again, and excited...