A Christmas Carol by Charles ,Dickens, was first published nearly 160 years ago this December but its appeal seems never to lessen. Yet Dickens was later to declare that his masterpiece had ruined him. That Autumn of 1843 he was stlll writing Martin Chuzzlewit, but so many new ideas came flooding in at this time that he launched into a fresh enterprise between instalments. A Christmas Carol filled Dickens with great enthusiasm. To a friend, he wrote 'My chief purpose was, in a whimsical kind of romance, to awaken some loving, kind and charitable thoughts.' This first and most famous of all his Christmas books was written in only four weeks, so strongly the writing demon had Dickens in its grip. As he wrote later, 'I wept and laughed and wept again...walked the dark streets of London fifteen and twenty miles a night thinking of it when all sober people had gone to their beds.'

The experience of tramping those London streets in winter gazing in upon rooms still lit by firelight, seeing family gatherings in well lit parlours, sometimes even 'the flickering of a blaze showing preparations for a cosy dinner' all contributed to the breadth of vision and sheer humanity of the book. It is also full or brilliant contrasts in life styles as a result. From the start 'A Christmas Carol' was extremely popular. That first edition of six thousand copies sold out on the very first day and two thousand were bespoken by the trade before the story was even reprinted. Jubilantly, Dickens anticipated that he would make at least a thousand pounds from it (worth well over a hundred times as much then as today!). He needed the money urgently for he was heavily in debt. Not only had he a wife, five children and a sister-in-law to support, but also his parents and two idle brothers in a separate household.

Rightly, Dickens was proud of his Christmas Carol and determined it should be handsomely presented. He insisted on expensive paper, ornate gilded binding and colour plates, so the production of his masterpiece cost nearly as much as the selling price of six shillings a copy. Already irritated with his publishers - Chapman and Hall - about the disappointing sales of Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens blamed them for inadequate advertising and poor management. So ended his connection with them. He transferred the publication of his books now to Bradbury and Evans who had been their printers. This rancour between Dickens and Chapman and Hall was mutual so, ironically 'A Christmas Carol' - a story of Christian charity and kindness - fuelled the bitterest of quarrels. Their final accounts caused Dickens to fume that he was 'not only on his beam ends, but tilted over on the other side. Nothing so ruinous has ever befallen me.'

Still worse was yet to come. Pirate editions of his book, cheaply produced by other publishers, soon flooded the market, for the strict modern laws concerning copyright did not then exist. Naturally, sales of his own official editions of the Carol fell sharply and then came a serialised condensed version of his book, printed in a popular threepenny weekly...it was the last straw. Dickens felt obliged to sue the pirate publishers, managed to obtain an injunction against the editors who had altered his original work, and was awarded one thousand pounds in damages. Alas, the offending weekly paper went bankrupt at this time and poor Dickens had to pay the costs of the case which amounted to £700. No wonder a bitter Dickens announced 'My feeling is that it is better to suffer a great wrong than to have recourse to the much greater wrong of the Law.'

To cut down on his expenses the, writer sublet his luxurious Devonshire Terrace homes and in July 1844 took his family abroad for a year in Italy, where he licked his wounds and went sightseeing for fresh copy. His next Christmas story 'The Chimes' contained a sharper attack on social heartlessness, more fiery satire and fine caricatures of both the cold-hearted and the patronising at Christmas. The disastrous financial blow dealt to Dickens over 'A Christmas Carol' and his bitterness against the law fuelled many of his later novels, in which his hatred of the legal profession finds a powerful voice.

Luckily none of these dark shadows can mar the pleasure his novel has brought to generations of readers. It's wish fulfilment aspect is as attractive as ever. Like Cinderella, this story of a grim old miser wonderfully transformed into a fairy godfather, holds a perennial magic. As Scrooge's nephew sums up the case for Christmas - 'a good time, a kind, forgiving charitable time - the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut up hearts freely. And therefore Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good, and I say 'God bless It!"

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