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The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits Paperback – October 25, 2011

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As uplifting as the tale of Scrooge itself, this is the story of how Charles Dickens revived the signal holiday of the Western world—now a major motion picture. 

Just before Christmas in 1843, a debt-ridden and dispirited Charles Dickens wrote a small book he hoped would keep his creditors at bay. His publisher turned it down, so Dickens used what little money he had to put out
A Christmas Carol himself. He worried it might be the end of his career as a novelist.

The book immediately caused a sensation. And it breathed new life into a holiday that had fallen into disfavor, undermined by lingering Puritanism and the cold modernity of the Industrial Revolution. It was a harsh and dreary age, in desperate need of spiritual renewal, ready to embrace a book that ended with blessings for one and all.

With warmth, wit, and an infusion of Christmas cheer, Les Standiford whisks us back to Victorian England, its most beloved storyteller, and the birth of the Christmas we know best.
The Man Who Invented Christmas is a rich and satisfying read for Scrooges and sentimentalists alike.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“In this small but remarkable book, Les Standiford offers readers a gift for all seasons. Carefully researched and written in a stately, lucid prose, this book will be cherished by those who love Dickens, enjoy Christmas, or ponder the endless mysteries of human behavior.”
—Roland Merullo, author of
American Savior

“A wonderfully absorbing and revealing account, full of things I did not realize about
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, and the world of publishing. Once I started reading this book, truly, I could not put it down.”
—Dan Wakefield, author of
New York in the Fifties

The Man Who Invented Christmas is destined to be a classic about a classic. As Tiny Tim might say, ‘God Bless Everyone,’ in this case Standiford, for creating such a delightful and engaging gem—part history, part literary analysis, and all heart, just like the book that inspired it.”
—Madeleine Blais, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of
Uphill Walkers

About the Author

Les Standiford is the author of ten critically acclaimed novels as well as several works of nonfiction including Last Train to Paradise, The Man Who Invented Christmas, Meet You in Hell, and Washington Burning. He has received the Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is founding director of the creative writing program at Florida International University in Miami and was appointed holder of the Peter Meinke Chair in Creative Writing at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. He lives in Pinecrest, Florida, with his wife and three children.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crown (October 25, 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0307405796
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0307405791
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.24 x 0.58 x 7.94 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 out of 5 stars 673

About the author

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Les Standiford
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I was born in the Appalachian outpost of Cambridge, Ohio, then a mining and manufacturing town where no one that I ever met claimed to have written a book of to know anyone who had. I was the first in a sprawling family to go to college (I began at the Air Force Academy, but finding myself ill-prepared for taking orders, finished up at Muskingum), tried law school (Columbia) as well as a number of other things, then stumbled into a creative writing program at the University of Utah where life finally began to make sense. That process was aided by a stint as a Screenwriting Fellow at the American Film institute, where I learned what a story was. That eventually lead to the publication of SPILL, my first novel, followed by nine more, then a leap out of mystery and into history with LAST TRAIN TO PARADISE, now nearing its 40th printing. I've been writing historical narratives ever since, ten of them, trying to imbue those books with the same vividness that I hoped to bring to the novels, and--you be the judge--trying to make history as interesting as real life.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
673 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2024
So I saw the movie first, this past Christmas with my family. It was good - but a little too good I thought to myself and wanted to get the "real" story. And here it is. It's a good one. I wish I had read the book first because its hard not to use the movie images for your visuals as you read this. Les Standiford starts out telling us about the writing of this book but ends up, perhaps inevitably, telling us about Dickens's whole life. But kind of like after the movie, I feel like I need the whole story now - and there's surely a ton of full biographies out there. Plus now I need the original version of A Christmas Carol.

So back to this book - I enjoyed it immensely. It was instructive without being boring, and Dickens is surely a person who you can appreciate - a celebrity but also an artist - and artists seem to always have to balance their creative passions with economic realities. It's a life for the brave, and maybe a little crazy. But we would be lost without them.

I've enjoyed nearly every Christmas Carol/Scrooge story I've ever seen - except maybe some of the darker black and white oldies - which I should revisit. The character of scrooge was/still is brilliant. Rich and successful with unfiltered contempt for the poor and everyone else. No charity. Then Dickens shows us his sad background, and unexpectantly the reader/viewer feels more charitable towards Scrooge. It's a story that purposely tries and succeeds in transcending beyond its pages.

In the subtitle the author says A Christmas Carol "Rescued his career and revived our holiday spirits." I think that's true. But if a story manages to instigate someone to make changes (surely someone has in 150+ years), and show real charity to someone else - I think that goes beyond holiday spirit into something more profound.
Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2017
Anyone who loves Dickens’ "A Christmas Carol" should read this book; "The Man Who Invented Christmas" will help its reader understand Dickens’ condition at the time he wrote the story, and the challenges he faced in getting it written at all, let alone in the few weeks he had to finish the project before the Christmas season passed him by.

But "The Man Who Invented Christmas" is much more than a book about a book. Instead, it is best understood as an excellent short biography of Dickens and an explanation of his times and the impact of his work, with a special focus on "A Christmas Carol." There is also a good deal of information about the history of Christmas, which Mr. Standiford provides to show how Dickens' book revived its celebration.

As I wrote my own Christmas story, 
Back to Christmas , I read and listened to “A Christmas Carol” more than a dozen times. But after listening to Mr. Standiford’s excellent book, I feel like I understand Dickens' story better than ever before.
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Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2016
Very good short biography about Charles Dickens that focused on his writing of the Christmas Carol. I think the title is sort of mis-labled. I don't think the author shows that Dickens invented Christmas as much as he may have helped revive its popularity and made the customs of the season more sentimental. The author did show how Dickens life growing up affected the writings of his books. His father did serve time in a debtors prison and that brought out a lot of what Dickens felt about charity, forbearance and also the ignorance of the times. Standiford also talked much about the publishing business in Europe and throughout the world. Copyright laws were just starting to take hold and most countries had yet to recognize these laws from other countries. Dickens probably lost a lot of money to rip off copies of A Christmas Carol. Dickens struggled most of his time in trying get what he deserved from publishing his works. But the big thing to take from this book is how A Christmas Carol has held up over nearly 200 years. It is still the timeless classic as it always was. Many movies,TV shows,national and local productions are done of this story today and shows
no sign of slowing down. It will most likely still be just as popular in another 200 years.
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Top reviews from other countries

Tony Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars Clever little nook
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 1, 2023
Bought as a gift, entertaining read
Mary
5.0 out of 5 stars The story behind the writing of 'A Christmas Carol'. Highly recommend it.
Reviewed in Canada on December 14, 2017
If you are a Dickens fan and love 'A Christmas Carol', you will want to add this book to your library. A very easy read, Standiford chronicles Dickens' life in 1843 and the influences [his childhood, money problems, etc.] that led him to write this 'little book', as Dickens referred to it, which became a success at the time, and even today, sells only second to The Bible. He gave us a very human and heartfelt way to celebrate Christmas that has endured. The book became the basis for the movie which was released in November 2017 starring Dan Stevens and Christopher Plummer. Screenplay by Canada's own, Susan Coyne.
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Like the movie
Reviewed in Canada on February 6, 2021
Excellent book
Mr. R. G. Searle
3.0 out of 5 stars A good read marred by errors
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 30, 2012
This little book promises much and has a good deal to recommend it. The title, I suspect comes from Ackroyd's 1990 biography which asserts early on that "...Dickens can be said to have almost single-handedly created the modern idea of Christmas" and, as another reviewer has pointed out, Standiford relies heavily on Ackroyd throughout.

The author narrates the history of Dickens's writing of `A Christmas Carol' with pace and contextualizes the novella within the framework of its literary antecedents, Victorian origins and in the light of its impact on the present. As such it provides a useful quick guide to Dickens and his Christmas books and makes a good `stocking stuffer for the bookish' in the words of the New York Times Book Review quoted on the back cover.

Sadly, the book is littered with errors, most of which might have been avoided through some careful proofing and editing. James Kay-Shuttleworth is presented as plain `James Kay'; Mervyn Johns who played Bob Cratchit to Alistair Sims' Scrooge in the 1951 film `Scrooge' is presented as Mervyn Jones.

There are repeated references to Dickens's `divorce' whereas this was a separation. Standiford notes that Dickens began publication of Household Words in 1850 which would `continue until he died'. In fact it was discontinued in 1859 after Dickens fell out with Bradbury and Evans over his separation from his wife, Catherine, and Standiford makes this clear in the following chapter in which he discusses the publication of its replacement All the Year Round. A story is related in which Dickens invites his first love Maria Winter nee Beadnell to lunch with her husband when he actually contrived to have her call at his home alone at a time when he knew his wife would be away.

Even in the superfluous recounting of the plot of `A Christmas Carol' there are glaring errors, such as that in which Scrooge meets `a do-gooder seeking donations for the poor' as he walks home from his counting house (erroneously presented here as an `accounting firm'). Actually he meets the `portly gentleman' raising money for the `poor and destitute' whilst still in his office.

These minor mistakes serve to spoil what is otherwise a very pleasant and informative read.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A seemingly obscure book upon which a current Christmas movie is based .
Reviewed in Canada on January 2, 2020
Am currently reading this book . It is a wonderful history of the life of Dickens and how he came to write A Christmas carol... but it is is also a fascinating history of the modern novel as we know it ie . A completed story under one cover rather than excerpts submitted weekly or monthly for publishing ... and a history of publishing during the industrial revolution spearheaded in Britain mid 19th century .