TITLE PAGE

A Christmas Carol In Prose;

Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.

By Charles Dickens

The Illustrations by John Leech

Chapman and Hall 186 Strand
MDCCCXLIII.

/My own, and only, MS of the Book/
Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
Autograph manuscript signed, December 1843
Title page
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan before 1900; MA 97

Compelled by personal financial difficulties, Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in only six weeks, during a period of intense creativity in fall 1843. The original manuscript of A Christmas Carol reveals Dickens's method of composition, allowing us to see the author at work. The pace of writing and revision, apparently contiguous, is urgent, rapid, and boldly confident. Deleted text is struck out with a cursive and continuous looping movement of the pen and replaced with more active verbs—to achieve greater vividness or immediacy of effect— and fewer words for concision. This heavily revised sixty-six-page draft—the only manuscript of the story—was sent to the printer in order for the book to be published on 19 December, just in time for the Christmas market.