A Christmas carol
: in prose : being a ghost story of Christmas
Charles Dickens ; illustrator John Leech ; engraver W.J. Linton
London : Chapman & Hall ; 1843
The initial printing
of A Christmas Carol was 6000 copies and sold out within days.
Within 6 weeks of its original publication a plagiarized version appeared.
Despite winning the court case which followed Dickens became liable for
court costs when the pirate publishers declared bankruptcy. One of Dickens's
aims had been to show how greed and selfishness was becoming the dominant
spirit of the age.
In this book Dickens managed to express, through his depiction of Christmas,
a number of contemporary social concerns.