It will not be necessary to introduce the work of Charles Dickens to most people using this website.
If there is anybody young enough not to have heard his name before, or perhaps not sufficiently versed in English Literature, it may surprise you to learn that he is sometimes known as ‘The man who invented Christmas’. Obviously this is not true but certainly he was responsible for the rebirth of the celebration in 1843 with the publication of ‘A Christmas Carol’. The festival had lost popularity for social and economic reasons - most of the population was now in the cities and cultural values had changed as a result.
The ‘Poor Relations Story' ’takes place where Dickens thought Christmas should be. He wanted his stories to be shared by the family at home around the hearth. Dickens believed that if you could move peoples imagination you could change them to work for the betterment of the human condition.
Christmas itself doesn’t intrude much on the narrative - Dickens didn’t have time for organised religion - but the ‘Relations’ tale adheres strictly to the Dickensian idea of the spirit of the day ‘the spirit of active usefulness, perseverance, cheerful discharge of duty,kindness and forbearance..’
A short study of Dickens life will enlighten you as to why he held those values close to his heart. As a young child he spent one Christmas working in a Bootblack factory while his family was in Marshalsea prison for debt!.
I do hope you enjoy this story and to quote the phrase certainly invented by Dickens ----- ‘Merry Christmas’
Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812 –1870), was an English novelist born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, son of a naval pay clerk. He moved to Camden Town in London. His early years were an idyllic time spent outdoors and reading voraciously. He had a photographic memory for people and events that helped bring his fiction to life. His family was moderately well-off, and he received some education at a private school but all that changed when his father, after spending too much money entertaining and retaining his social position, was imprisoned for debt. At the age of twelve, Dickens was deemed old enough to work and began working for ten hours a day in a boot-blacking factory pasting labels on the jars of thick polish, earning six shillings a week. With this money, he had to pay for his lodging and help to support his family, most of whom were living with his father, who was still incarcerated in the nearby debtors' prison. Dickens never forgave his mother for not removing him from the factory as soon as finances had improved. ...
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