Did Charles Dickens see A Christmas Carol as an anti-slavery story?

By Lucy Whitehead, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, Royal Holloway, University of London

A Christmas Carol is usually read as a Victorian morality tale about capitalism and compassion. Yet an autographed script written by Charles Dickens during the American Civil War raises the possibility he may also have understood the story as speaking to the cause of ending slavery in the US.

First published in the UK on December 19 1843, the novella is famous for its advocacy of a reformed relationship between the Victorian capitalist Scrooge and the workers whose labour he profits from, epitomised by his downtrodden clerk, Bob Cratchit. The story has inspired countless…

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