Clifford ThompsonBBC News
Jayne Lloyd
Charles Dickens’s former home at 48 Doughty Street near King’s Cross
Think of Christmas and sooner or later you’re bound to think of Charles Dickens who’s credited with increasing the holiday’s popularity not least of all with his 1843 novella A Christmas Carol.
The book, which tells the story of miser Ebenezer Scrooge who is forced to become more charitable when he’s visited by ghosts, inspired Victorians to celebrate Christmas, which, as a holiday, had been in decline.
Even before the book was written, Dickens and his family were big fans of the festive season and it is now possible to get a sense of “Christmas past” at the author’s former house as it would have been decorated in the Victorian era.
Although he never wrote A Christmas Carol at 48 Doughty Street, near King’s Cross, it is the house where he finished writing The Pickwick Papers, wrote Nicholas Nickleby and most famously of all, Oliver Twist.
The house was occupied by the Dickens family from 1837 to 1839, and has since become the Dickens Museum, which is in its centenary year.
Deputy director at the museum, Emma Harper said: “Dickens loved Christmas. He loved a party, so that’s one element of it.
“He liked the feasting and the playing of games with his friends and family.
“But he was also really concerned about what he considered… the root of Christmas time which is charity and this was really behind his writing of a Christmas Carol.”
Charles Dickens Museum
Every year the spirit of Charles Dickens is kept alive through the decoration of his former home
Thanks to the book’s popularity, family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games and a festive generosity of spirit soon became long-standing traditions of the Christmas holidays.
Ms Harper also said much of Dickens’s writing was in response to the social landscape of Victorian society. He spent much of his time writing in Kent having moved to Chatham aged five.
Charles Dickens Museum
Scrooge visited by a ghost from the 1843 novella A Christmas Carol
Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol because of the poor laws that the government had introduced.
“He was afraid that this would harm those in the poorest of society even more and he was trying to make people realise that it was everyone’s responsibility to look after each other,” she said.
Charles Dickens Museum
Dicken’s study where he wrote Oliver Twist that was published in 1838
Scrooge’s redemption was all about giving at Christmas and helping your fellow man, she said, with the author’s feelings towards this time of year perhaps best summed up with this excerpt from A Christmas Carol:
“A good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely…”
- The Dickens Museum is open throughout the holidays except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day
