The story was written in 1843 and apparently written very quickly; Dickens was seized with the idea and completed the little book in just under six weeks.

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He interrupted the writing of Martin Chuzzlewhit to do it. Dickens got the idea for the story after visiting the northern industrial town of Manchester, England. He made a speech there about the necessity of educating very poor children.

 

Dickens wrote the book because he needed money, but he chose the theme as a response to the notorious poverty of the "hungry forties". A week after publication the Carol had sold an astounding 6000 copies. "A Christmas Carol" was Dickens’ favourite novel, and ten years later he began presenting it in public readings all over Britain, in Paris, and in the United States. Initially, his readings benefitted charities, mostly in aid of education or hospitals. After a few years of sold-out houses, he went professional and began to tour the readings.

 

He was so successful that his rival William Thackeray said Dickens could have earned 20,000 pounds a year if he had gone on the stage. No small sum in those days! His first public reading of "A Christmas Carol" took three hours. Over time, Dickens reduced it to about 80 minutes. It was said that particularly receptive audiences would stimulate Dickens to new effects, both histrionic and verbal. The "London Leader" wrote of his first performance in 1857, "We have rarely witnessed or shared an evening of such genuine enjoyment, never before remember to have seen a crowded assembly of three thousand people hanging for upwards of two hours on the lips of a single reader...every fragment of the dialogue was treated dramatically. At the close there was an outburst, not so much of applause as of downright hurrahing, from every part of the hall."