Dickensian Christmas

Don’t be a Scrooge! Celebrate the spirit and former haunts of Charles Dickens, the Victorian author who shaped our vision of the modern festive season.

- Richard Jones

On the evening of October 5 1843, Charles Dickens took his place on the stage of the Athenaeum in Manchester – a society for the “advancement and diffusion of knowledge”, which had been founded in 1837 specifically to provide a place of education and recreation for the working men and women of the city. However, thanks to a recent economic recession, the club was heavily in debt and Dickens was about to give a speech that, it was hoped, would help raise much-needed funds.

What few of that night’s audience would have realised was that Dickens himself was a troubled man. The author was 31 and, for the last seven years, the success of his books such as The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby had seen him rise to become, arguably, the second most famous Victorian, behind only the Queen herself. However, Dickens’ fortunes had taken a downturn in 1843. His latest work, Martin Chuzzlewit, had seen disappointing sales; his wife, Catherine, was pregnant with their fifth child; and he himself, just like the noble institution he was about to address, was heavily in debt.

But, as he rose to his feet that night, Dickens put his personal troubles behind him and, over the course of 12 or so minutes, dazzled his audience with a speech that extolled the virtues of the educational opportunities afforded by the Athenaeum (in a building that today houses part of Manchester Art Gallery).

His speech brought his audience to their feet and, with the applause still ringing in his ears, he headed back through the streets of the city to the house of his sister, Fanny, with whom he was staying. As he walked, an idea began to formulate; an idea for a book that, he hoped, might rescue his ailing fortunes. A book that would come out in time for, and be sold specifically for, Christmas.