Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in late 1843. It was suddenly conceived and dashed off in a few weeks while he was working on his novel Martin Chuzzlewit (published in 1844). The story follows a miserly old man named Ebenezer Scrooge who is transformed into a kind benefactor after he is visited by a series of ghosts who teach him the spirit of Christmas. The short novel was published on December 19, 1843, and sold out its first printing of 6,000 copies by Christmas Eve. It essentially marks the invention of the Christmas book genre. Learn more about Dickens’s reason for writing A Christmas Carol.