How Scrooge Nearly Didn’t Become Scrooge

Charles Dickens took six weeks to write A Christmas Carol. It was first published in 1843 on December 17th. After a feud with his publisher, Chapman & Hall, over bad sales of his previous novel, Dickens decided after the book appeared in serial form he would self-publish. But A Christmas Carol ran into production problems which caused the novel not to generate as much profit as Dickens was used to. To compound the problem, Dickens’ wife was pregnant with yet another child and so the family needed the money

But luckily the novel was received well and even Dickens most bitter of critics was forced to concede A Christmas Carol was a masterpiece. This helped the novel sell well through subsequence years and, of course, made it into a classic.

My favourite film version of A Christmas Carol is with Alastair Sim. As kids, my family had a tradition of watching the film every Christmas Eve. We would all curl around the couch in the living room, the fireplace would be blazing. My dad would always laugh at the pun when Scrooge first encounters Marley: “There’s more of gravy than grave about, whatever you are!”

Filmed in 1951, it is wildly regarded by critics as the best adaptation for the screen. I love the bleakness of the black-and-white contrast with the amazing acting of all the primary characters. Sim was indeed born to play Scrooge — with his deep-set eyes, and long jutting nose — and reprised the role in 1971 for an animated version. However, the 1951 version was not an instant hit and lost money. It wasn’t until television reruns that the film gained popularity.

The book that popularized the phrase ‘Merry Christmas’ shows that just because something isn’t an instantaneous success – either financially or critically – doesn’t mean you should give up on it. There have been countless times when things pick up steam after an initial sputter. Stephen King tossed the novel that made him into a national bestseller into the trash at first. If it hadn’t been rescued by his wife, who knows what would have happened to Stephen King, the master of horror.

My film Neutral Territory was by no means a runaway success the first time we submitted it to film festivals or broadcasters but by perseverance it went on to be nominated for 15 awards, won 12 more and even played in Times Square for thousands of viewers!

So my Christmas message is this: Do not give up on something just because you first face resistance. Some things need to ripen before they reach their full potential. Success will only be that much more sweater, as I’m sure it was for Dickens when A Christmas Carol became a cultural icon. A Christmas Carol, by the way, has never been out of print, despite its first run being problematic.

Have a Merry Christmas and hopefully are able to spend it with the ones you love. May Santa be good to you this year and bring you lots of books! I would like to give a very special thank you to all of you who have read my blog regularly. And as Tiny Tim says, “God Bless you, everyone!”

Please check out my new novel Shame the Devil now on Amazon

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