By 1843, Dickens was mired in woes. “[H]is marriage was troubled, his career tottering, his finances ready to collapse,” writes Les Standiford. The fabled author was even asking himself if he should give up fiction writing. The paradox here lies in the fact that Dickens was facing this kind of a life crisis after he had already written “The Pickwick Papers” and “The Adventures of Oliver Twist.”

 

In other words, as Standiford recounts in “The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits,” in just six weeks (in time for publication by Christmas) Dickens sat down and wrote a classic of Western literature.

 

In his account of how Dickens came to write it, novelist Les Standiford writes that it came as a consequence of the "season of depression" that Dickens saw around him in the industrial city of Manchester in October 1843 where he had gone to speak at the opening of the city's Athenaeum.

 

The story of the churlish Ebenezer Scrooge, the endearing family of his impoverished clerk Bob Cratchit, and Scrooge’s moral transformation after visits from a series of ghosts, did more than to restore Dickens’s reputation. The book, which, at the turn of the 20th century was thought to have more readers than any book other than the Bible, is still one of the best known works in the English language.

 

With unforgettable characters - the Ghost of Marley, Scrooge's long-dead partner; Bob Cratchit, Scrooge's put-upon clerk; and his invalid son, Tiny Tim - it is, as Standiford writes, "a bald-faced parable that underscores Dickens's enduring themes: the deleterious effects of ignorance and want, the necessity for charity, the benefits of goodwill, family unity, and the need for celebration of the life-force, including the pleasures of good food and drink, and good company."

 

One of the delights of Standiford's book is that he underlines the moment when this work was conceived. Having shown us in detail why Dickens needed money and needed it fast, he then describes him walking the rainy streets of Manchester after a triumphant speech at the Athenaeum, an education and recreation venue for the working class (one of the other speakers was writer and politician Benjamin Disraeli, who went on to serve as prime minister three times). But while basking in his audience's approval, he contemplated the dreadful social ills all around him, a city where thousands were unemployed and over half of the children of working-class parents died before they reached the age of 5. As he walked, a new story occurred to him. And the manner in which people worldwide perceive Christmas has changed ever since.