A Christmas Carol

The great Christmas classic by Dickens is reprinted in the Green Integer series.

Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7th, 1812. At the age of eleven, Dickens was taken out of school and sent to work in a London blacking warehouse, where his job was to paste labels on bottles for six shillings a week. When the family fortunes improved, Charles went back to school, after which he became an office boy, a freelance reporter, and finally an author. With<i> Pickwick Papers</i> (1836-7) he achieved immediate fame; in a few years he was easily the most popular and respected writer of his time. It has been estimated that one out of every ten persons in Victorian England was a Dickens reader. <i>Oliver Twist</i> (1837), <i>Nicholas Nickelby</i> (1838-9), and <i>The Old Curiosity Shop</i> (1840-41) were huge successes. <i>Martin Chuzzlewit</i> (1843-4) was less so, but Dickens followed it with his unforgettable <i>A Christmas Carol</i> (1843). <i>Bleak House</i> (1852-3), <i>Hard Times</i> (1854), and <i>Little Dorrit</i> (1855-7) reveal his deepening concern for the injustices of British society. <i>A Tale of Two Cities </i>(1859), <i>Great Expectations </i>(1860-61) and <i>Our Mutual Friend</i> (1864-5) complete his major works.