Matthew Henerson as Fezziwig and the cast of A Christmas Carol. Photo by Jamie Kraus Photography

By Dan Sullivan

This article was originally published in Applause magazine in 2009. It has been edited for length.

He wrote it for the money. Not just for the money, of course: Charles Dickens was no Grub Street hack. Still, his family was growing, he was behind on his bills and his latest novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, wasn’t selling as expected. “A little book for the Christmas trade” might be just the ticket.

He already had a point of departure: a vignette in The Pickwick Papers about a jittery gravedigger who spends a drunken Christmas Eve spooked by goblins. What if Dickens were to turn him into a cold-hearted financier named…Ebenezer Scrooge? What sort of midnight ghosts would he entertain?  

He dashed off the story in six weeks. Rather, it dashed off with him.

“I don’t invent, but see it, and write it down.” — Charles Dickens

Mornings, he strode around his study acting out the roles — now the flinty old miser, now the angelic little boy on crutches. Evenings, he roamed the streets, wiping away a tear or a smile as a new scene came to him. And when the thing was done — November 1843 — “I broke out like a Madman.”

Published in mid-December, A Christmas Carol swept the town. Alas, it didn’t clear up his cash-flow problem; but only because Dickens had pressured his publisher into selling it for a mere five shillings — a price even Bob Cratchit could afford.

But everyone went mad for it. Even the Americans. Even his archrival, William Makepeace Thackeray, who called it a more powerful Christmas sermon than all the clerics in England could have devised.

The din was so loud that by February no fewer than eight London theatres had slapped bootlegged stage versions of A Christmas Carol onto their stages, none of them written by Dickens. “O heaven, if ever this was in my mind!” he moaned.

Why then did he allow them to continue? Perhaps to keep the title before the public? There was no need. More than 180 years later, A Christmas Carol remains the best-selling Christmas book of all time and the most-performed Christmas play.

Strangely it’s less of a favorite on the English stage, where it’s up against that peculiar theatrical form, the Christmas pantomime: camped-up versions of Aladdin and Cinderella. But in the colonies Scrooge rules. Is there a major American resident theatre where A Christmas Carol hasn’t been an “annual family tradition,” for the last 20 or 30 years? Sure but, trust me, they were tempted.

It’s the one show of the season that a box-office manager can reasonably trust to put bums on seats, as the Brits say. Ibsen may fail, Albee may falter, but Dickens will pull you through.

A tradition must be maintained, but does it stand up to the test of time? Take it down from the shelf and see for yourself. Consider, for example:

Its Theme.

“Redemption,” we used to say, but “recovery” would better suit the Age of Oprah. Using guided imagery, Scrooge’s ghosts lead him through his past, force him to confront his hang-ups and give him the necessary tools to get on with the rest of his life. Instant intervention — and without a co-pay! Will he stay with the program? One can only hope.

Its subject.

“Greedd” if you insist, but “the economy” would be even more timely. As a spokesman for free market capitalism, Scrooge has had his defenders in the past. G.K. Chesterton suggested that he was supporting a dozen charities on the sly. Ed Meese of the Reagan administration thought that he paid Bob Cratchit a good salary.

Another 1980s commentator noted Scrooge’s impeccable reputation in the financial community. Ouch, we say; just like Bernie Madoff. The comparison would please Mr. Dickens no end.

Its tact.

What is A Christmas Carol not about? Religion, thank God. Wearied by America’s annual Christmas Wars — the First Amendment crowd versus the churchgoers — we’re grateful to Dickens for a cheerful holiday sermon that consigns no one to the outer darkness. “God bless us every one” may be the most sensible prayer ever written.

As noted, Dickens himself never turned his book into a play. The nearest thing we have to a script is the text he used for his sensationally popular public readings, which continued for 20 years, to his own delight.

Every other telling of the story is an adaptation — skillful, clumsy or just there. My first Scrooge was Lionel Barrymore on the radio, a warm-up for his mean old banker in It’s A Wonderful Life. You may remember George C. Scott’s Scrooge — boldly drawn and beautifully detailed. Or Alistair Sim in an earlier British film, all jangled nerves.

Those are two of the more respectable adaptations. It’s also been a starring vehicle for Mister Magoo and a Little Golden Book featuring Scrooge McDuck.

It’s been sliced, diced, chopped, camped, cartooned, transplanted to Harlem and the Old West, and this year turned into a Disney movie starring Jim Carey. Having been put through the wash so often, there ought to be nothing left of it.

But there it stands, pretty much as Dickens conceived it. Perhaps what we’re really dealing with here (which may explain why Dickens only considered himself its foster father) is a myth — not a lie, but a truth embodied in a fiction.

Dickens described his little book best: a ghost story aimed at raising “the ghost of a thought.”

And a parable for our times, however you slice it.

Dan Sullivan (1935–2022) directed the National Critics Institute at the O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, CT, taught journalism at the University of Minnesota and was a theatre critic for the Los Angeles Times.

DETAILS
A Christmas Carol
Nov 21-Dec 28, 2025 • Wolf Theatre
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