BATTLE OF THE NATIVITY

I am tempted to call it a primeval struggle, drenched in antiquity, shrouded in religious fervor and destined to feed future conflict until come judgment day, whenever the heck that may  be. Except it just ain’t so. It is much simpler than that. The day after Christmas 2007, two rival gangs got into a turf dispute and started a  rumble. Somebody called the cops, who managed to separate the combatants, The Jets (AKA the Greek Orthodox Priests), and the Sharks (AKA the Armenian Apostolic Priests) were battling inside the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birth place of the Prince of Peace in Bethlehem, Israel, Palestinian Territories. And nothing about this melee made any more sense than your standard gang brawl. And yet I blame the French Emperor Napoleon III for the entire mess.

First, a word about all that antiquity – it does not appear to have happened where or when everybody now thinks it did - assuming it happened at all. Roman census or no census, there was no reason for a pregnant Mary to be making a 90 mile donkey ride from Nazareth, on the Galilee plain of northern Israel, to Bethlehem in the mountains just south of Jerusalem, in the west center of Israel. Being the man, Joseph was expected and qualified to speak for his entire family. He would have been the only one required to travel. But why require anybody to travel? The Romans census takers did what census takers still do today - they counted people where they were. That would be where their property was, and where their money was. Why disrupt business all across a rebellious province, in the name of counting people where they were not? It makes no sense.

And there is another problem, an archaeological problem. There is no archeology in Bethlehem from that period. The ground under today's Bethlehem contains Iron Age artifacts and Byzantine artifacts, but nothing in between, nothing from the age of Jesus. The village outside of Jerusalem did not exist on the night that Jesus was born.. However, there was another Bethlehem, “Bethlehem Ha Galilit”, Bethlehem of Galilee, just about 7 miles to the west of Nazareth. It seems far more likely that Jesus of Nazareth was born in Bethlehem Ha Galilit, than in Bethlehem Judea. But because Bethlehem Ha Galilit no longer existed in the fourth century of the common era, when the Byzantine Christians came looking for Jesus' birthplace, they jumped to the wrong conclusion and picked the wrong Bethlehem. So did the followers of Islam, when they first captured the region in year 627 B.C.E.  After all, Jesus is one of their prophets. But after this, things got really complicated.

See, after the Crusaders were driven out of the Holy Land in 1187 the Muslim rulers had enough respect for Christianity that they were willing to protect the Christian holy sites, and, of course, tax them. But they did not trust the Roman Catholics, who had invaded them and now made up a majority of Bethlehem Judea’s population.  So the Muslim rulers split control of the profitable tourist sites in Bethlehem Judea between the Greek and Armenian Orthodox churches, in particular the church built upon the “traditional” site of the birth of Jesus. The Greek Orthodox were given control of one part of the building, the Armenian Orthodox control of another part. This allowed the Muslims rulers to play the two Christian sects one against the other, and to play them both off the Roman Catholics, who were now the poor relations in town.

And thus some calm was achieved in a region not famous for calm, at least until 1852, when a “firman” (or edict) was issued by Abdulmecit I, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire and Caliph of the Muslim World (above). Abdulmecit issued his edict because…well, because first, in 1847 some thug stole the silver star which marked the “traditional” spot of Jesus’ birth, in the floor of the Church of the Nativity, and, more importantly, because the Sultan was weak and because Louis Napoleon III of France was a pompous political hack, who believed that he had been chosen by God to fix, first France, and then rest of the world.

Louis Napoleon III was elected to a ten year term as the first President of the Second Republic of France in December of 1848. He immediately started plotting to follow in his uncle’s imperial boot prints. By early in 1852 Louis had helped to restore the Vatican’s independence in Rome (which pleased French Catholic voters), but he had also insisted that the new Papal government be drawn up along “liberal” lines, to placate the liberal (meaning non-Catholic) French voters. But no Church ever likes to be lectured about liberal policies from secular politicians. Just try it some time and see.

In an attempt to placate the now angry Catholic voters, Louis III suggested that the theft of the star from the Church of the Nativity (five years earlier) proved that the Church of the Nativity was no longer “safe”, and control should be handed over to the Roman Catholic Church for protection - yet another politician declaring a crises which needed his genius to solve. This particular crises pleased Pope Pius IX., who had come to the conclusion that Czar Nicholas I of Russia was intent upon wiping out Catholicism in his country - which Nicholas was, the Czar being the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Louis' demand also pleased Abdulmecit I, because Albdulmecit had the distinct feeling that Czar Nicholas was about to invade Turkey - which he was. So,  under Abdulmecit's edict, the keys to the Church of the Nativity were now handed over the representatives of the Roman Catholic Church. At the same time the edict also required the Vatican to maintain the church “in statu quo res errant”, or, “as it was before”. This edict is linguistically important because it popularization the Latin phrase “status quo”.

Now, all of his life Russian Czar Nicholas I had been told that Russia was a military superpower and protector of the true faith, that faith being Russian Orthodoxy. And Nicholas was not about to allow a mere “politician”, least of all a trumped up “Bonaparte”, to usurp his regal and holy authority. Nicholas demanded the keys to the Church of the Nativity be returned to the Armenian and Greek priests, who would, he was certain, be controlled by him. And when the keys were not handed over,  he declared war on Turkey - of course, he had been planning on doing that anyway.  Britain and France then came to Turkey’s defense. And so Louis’ gambit to impress French voters led directly to the Crimean War, and 118,000 dead; of whom 20, 000 were French, and 73,000 were Russian.  And, as part of the peace treaty that ended the war, the keys were returned to the Greek and Armenian priests.

In his rise to power Napoleon III (above) had shamelessly played one political faction off another, and eventually abolished democracy in his own state, created a throne for himself, invaded Algeria and Vietnam - both of which actions came back to haunt France a century later - and was finally goaded into the 1870 Franco-Prussian War,  which resulted in his humiliating defeat, the creation of Germany,  Louis’ own overthrow and his death. This guy was the Donald Trump of 19th century French diplomacy.

The Crimean War also cost Nicholas I his life. While on campaign against Turkey he caught a chill and died of pneumonia on 2 March, 1855. The Ottoman Sultan, Abdülmecit, lived long enough to see his nation plunged into debt by that same war.  By Abdulmecit's death from tuberculosis in 1861, Turkey was flat broke. His successor was dethroned.

Amazingly, the same war left Pope Pius IX alive but very frustrated. Because France had been distracted by the Crimean War, there was no help from France when Victor Emmanuel took control of Italy in 1860 from the Catholic Church and established the modern semi-secular nation of Italy.  But Pius achieved a measure of revenge when, in 1869 he issued the decree of Papal Infallibility and declared the dogma of Immaculate Conception. Together these meant that Mary, mother of Jesus, was born without sin because the Pope said she was without sin. And the Pope was never wrong, because he said he was never wrong. Neither of these were official Roman Catholic dogma until 1869, but it has been church dogma ever since. The last American President to declare this was Richard Nixon, and he was forced to resign - so evidently it only works for religious leaders.

But, let us finally return to the Church of the Nativity on 27 December, 2007. According to the Associated Press; “....dozens of priests and cleaners came to the fortress-like church to scrub and sweep the floors, walls and rafters ahead of the Armenian and Orthodox Christmas, celebrated in the first week of January...  But the clean-up turned ugly after some of the {Greek) Orthodox faithful stepped inside the Armenian church's section, touching off a scuffle between about 50 Greek Orthodox and 30 Armenians. Palestinian police, armed with batons and shields, quickly formed a human cordon to separate the two sides so the cleaning could continue...Four people, some with blood running from their faces, were slightly injured.”

Traditionally both the Orthodox and Armenian churches have recruited their priests for this sacred post from tiny isolated villages scattered across Greece and the Balkans, where Christians (and Muslims) have been slaughtering each other for a thousand years. These naive young men now suddenly found themselves working in intimate contact and sharing the most precious artifacts of their faith with heretics. Nothing in their lives or their training prepared them for any kind of peaceful coexistence.

And the whole thing was Louis Napoleon III’s idea.  But try explaining that to a bunch of uneducated foreigners.

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TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS

I have two favorite Christmas chorals; the haunting Carol of the Bells, composed in 1904 by Ukrainian Mykola Leontovych, and the seemingly nonsensical Twelve Days of Christmas, which is old enough that we have no idea who composed it. In fact, the Twelve Days of Christmas might even predate Christianity in France, where the song originated. And that makes this English carol more interesting - to me, anyway – because it speaks to the evolution of the holiday. Remember, it wasn't until 137 years after the death of Jesus, give or take a couple of years, that the Bishop of Rome ordered a “Christesmaesse” - Christ's Mass -  to celebrate Jesus' birth on the 25th of December.

You see, the twelve disciples did not celebrate Christmas, partly because they were Jewish, but mostly because until fairly recently anything from 60 to 80% of infants died within hours of their birth.

Nobody celebrated their birth day, not even Pope Julius I (above), who around 345 A.D. picked December 25^th as Jesus' birth day.  For all humans, even for the Messiah, life did not officially begin until their epiphany, (meaning, according to thesaurus.com -the announcement, the display, the exhibition or the showing of the new child), which was not done until you were pretty sure the child was going to live. And Jesus' epiphany is traditionally celebrated on January 6th – 12 days after Christmas.

This English Christmas Carol began as a medieval midwinter festival “memories and forfeits game”, a sort of musical chairs in a world without very many chairs. We know the game began in France because the Red-legged (or French) partridge, widespread in medieval Europe, commonly perches in trees, unlike the the English (or grey) partridges which, while common today, were not introduced to England until the 18^th century, and prefer ledges or cliffs. And in all three medieval French versions of the song that we know of, and all surviving English versions, “a partridge in a pear tree” is the first and final present always received by the lead singer. So it all started in France with Red-legged partridges.

In the game the leader sings a verse, and each participant repeats what they have just heard, and everybody then takes a drink of wine or mead. Then the leader sings another verse, adding an item, the players repeat, and then everybody drinks again. The rounds we have inherited begin “On the first day of Christmas, my true love gives to me, a partridge in a pear tree.  On second day of Christmas, my true love gives to me, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.”

The game continues (with variations) to three French Hens, four colly birds, five gold rings, six geese a-laying, seven swans a-swimming, eight maids a-milking, nine ladies dancing, ten lords a-leaping, eleven pipers pipping, and twelve drummers drumming. A player who forgets an item is eliminated and forced to offer a kiss to the leader, or eat a less than appealing food item. The game would continue until all 12 verses were done, or all the players but one had been eliminated because they were too drunk to remember their own names, let alone how many maids were milking. Sound familiar?  How many bottles of beer do you have on your wall?

And yes, the line is “four colly birds”, as in a colliery, meaning a coal pit or a mine. The birds referred to were as black as coal – the common European black bird. When this song was translated into English, crows and ravens were large enough to only be referred to as fowl.

But the 4 ½ ounce Turdus merula (the black thrush) (above), was small enough to be called a bird . In the winter black birds were easy to attract with seed and easy to catch with a net, and they were a common part of the diet. Peasants sang about “four and twenty black birds baked in a pie”, and they meant these cute little guys. It is a reminder that there are huge chunks of our culture based on now forgotten starvation times repeatedly suffered in each life time. And “break fasts,” like the midwinter festival, were fond memories, which Christianity had to adopt and adapt.

In fact, birds play a major role in this song, as if the leader was scanning the banquet table for the next noun to use in the next verse. The partridge is followed by turtle doves, french hens, the Colly birds, geese and swans. The five gold rings seem out of place unless they refer to the ring-necked pheasant, the male of which (above) has a golden brown plumage and a white ring around his neck. There would have been such a bird on any well stocked pheasants midwinter festival table, along with the other bird protein

There would also have been cheese (made from milk), and about the room, men and women dancing - but not in pairs, that would not become common until the 10^th century. And of course there would be musicians accompanying the song-game with the world's oldest instruments, a flute (or a pipe) and a drum. Music was as vital a part of pagan religious and social celebrations, as they are of Christian services.

And that brings up the recent myth that this game was used to preserve Catholicism in a hostile Protestant England. That might be true, except there is not even of hint of that story until 1979. However, the success of this myth across the Internet since then, does offer an insight into the methodology Christianity used to snatch Christmas from the happy pagans getting drunk at their winter solstice break fast. I am not suggesting a conspiracy, but rather a well meaning application of religiously influenced logic .That is also probably how Mithra over came Apollo, and how Jupiter conquered Zeus. It would be wise for all born again Christian evangelicals to remember that religious practices never really die, they just become adopted and adapted.  That has nothing to do with the validity of any belief. It just means humans have always wanted to believe.

The same can be said about a certain odd mathematical aspect of the carol. If you add up all the gifts – 1 partridge, 2 turtle doves and 1 partridge, 3 french hens, 2 turtle doves and 1 partridge, etc., etc. – they add up to 364 gifts in total. It seems there ought to be some connection between the gifts and the length of the year. The only problem is a year is 365 ¼ days long, not 364, and that length has been well known since, well, since forever. And while it seems the number of gifts, like some sort of Christmas carol kabbalah, ought to mean something, it really doesn't. And that seems to me to be the difference between religion and science. In religion the possibility of meaning is the meaning, while in science the possibility is theory and subject to testing. Religion gave us the pyramids and Michelangelo's "David". Science gave us a modern infant mortality rate in industrial nations of less then 1% and birthdays.

Which brings us to the Christmas Price Index, created in 1984 by the chief economist for PNC Financial Services Group, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, as “a humorous commodity price index to measure the changing cost of goods over time” using the gifts in The Twelve Days of Christmas. Each year in late November, PNC analysts consult with the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden and the National Aviary in Philadelphia to price most of the birds in the song. However, for some reason, rather than a European black bird, PNC uses the price of a canary at Petco. Gordon Jewelers, a division of Zale Corporation out of Irving, Texas, prices five gold rings for the Index, even tho, as I said earlier, the gift probably refereed to was the ring-necked pheasants. The maids-a-milking are assumed to be earning federal minimum wage, and the Philadelphia Dance Company and their Ballet Company provide the cost of leaping and dancing ladies and lords. The Pennsylvania Musicians Union provides the cost of the drummers and pipers, and the fruit tree was by tradition priced by Waterloo Gardens, an upscale Philadelphia plant nursery catering to the local top 1% of green thumbs.

In 2019, the partridge and the pair tree together cost $210.17, a decrease of 4.6%  since last year. The price of the turtle doves also dropped, from $375 for the pair to just $300.00. The trio of French Hens was unchanged for the third year in a row,  at $181.50. The 4 Colling birds (actually Petco canaries) also remained steady at $599.96.  The five gold rings gained about  10% over last year, now priced at $825.00.   The price for 6 geese a-laying - at  $420 - was up almost 8%, while, the 7 swans - at $13,125 - ,was unchanged. The 8 maids a milking -  at just  $58.00  -  remained flat for the past 7 years - (which says something very depressing about women and the minimum wage), as did the price of 9 maids dancing at $7,552.84., and the price of the ten lords a leaping, at  $10,000.00. The musicians union was able to secure  $2,792.25 for the wind instruments and the 12 drummers also up 0.8% .  The 2019 total was $170,298.03, flat over 2018.

PNC admits they use the index to “engage clients”, which means they are trying to entertain bankers, a profession not known for their humor or their humility. But, PNC also admits this annual nonsense economic measure has become “one of PNC’s most popular and anticipated economic reports.” I suspect that is in large part because it is “filler” used by media types to add a Christmas hint to their newscasts.  However, there may be hidden a more significant meaning, if  you care to look.  In June of 2012, after 70 years in business, the “nationally renowned Waterloo Gardens” went bankrupt. It seems after the "Great Recession",  even the 1% were tightening their belts, which means their gardeners were beginning to starve. And that was in 2012, before the minimum wage was stuck for another 7 years.

In any case, please have a Merry, merry, happy Capitalist Christmas. If you can afford it this year.

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A CHRISTMAS CAROL Birth of The Modern Christmas

I know precisely when and where modern Christmas was born. It was late on the evening of Thursday, 5 October, 1843. And it was on the dismal streets of the Lancaster industrial town of Manchester, England. 

Then and there a dapper 31 year old clean shaven Charles John Huffman Dickens (above) went for a stroll.  He walked purposefully past the clattering cotton and textile mills and the stinking bleach works.

He slipped like an alien through the laborers milling around the foundry shops and on the docks of the befouled Irwell River -  men women and children who toiled 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, to survive on a paltry £9, 3 shillings. It was on such walks as these ““...when all the sober folks had gone to bed” that Charles Dickens created our Christmas.

Michelangelo once said his David was always hidden inside the marble. All he had to do was chip away everything which was not the young Israelite contemplating the approaching Goliath. Writers work the same way, but first they must create their own stones. And then they must mercilessly chip away until they reveal the story hidden inside themselves. Or, as sportswriter “Red” Smith put it, “You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed.” And to do that on demand is to be a professional writer.

Charles Dickens had achieved instant fame with his first novel, The Pickwick Papers, published in serial form beginning in 1836. 

This was followed by the hugely popular Oliver Twist in 1837, the equally successful Nicholas Nickleby (above) in 1838, the less successful Old Curiosity Shop, in 1840, and the forgettable and forgotten Barnaby Rudge in 1841, all serialized in magazines. 

It began to seem Charles Dickens had peaked. But he still had to support a wife and four children, with a fifth child on the way. He remained the sole financial support for his impoverished parents, and other relatives in desperate straits. And there were the demands from his tailor, for Charles Dickens was a lifelong enthusiastic clothes horse.

In Chapter 29 of the Pickwick Papers, published at the end of October 1837, Dickens made one of his first references to the holiday, in the story of a garrulous old church sexton and grave digger named Gabriel Grub. “A little before twilight one Christmas eve, Gabriel Grub...betook himself towards the old churchyard, for he had got a grave to finish by next morning.” On his way, Grub pauses to threaten a young boy who is singing carols. Then, later, when he pauses to drink from a wicker jug he is challenged by a goblin king.

"What man wanders among graves and churchyards on such a night as this?" asked the goblin. "Gabriel Grub! Gabriel Grub!" screamed a wild chorus of voices that seemed to fill the churchyard.” 

The goblins take Grub under the earth, and display a tableau of a lives of a typical middle class English family, including the fate of a dying child. “His brother and sisters crowded around his little bed, and seized his tiny hand, so cold and heavy... What do you think of THAT? " said the goblin...,Gabriel murmured out something about its being very pretty.... You, a miserable man!" said the goblin in a tone of excessive contempt...”

After more lessons, Grub “came to the conclusion that it was a very decent and respectable sort of world, after all...” In the morning Gabriel Grub has mysteriously disappeared. “The lantern, the spade, and the wicker bottle were found that day in the churchyard.” But 10 years later Grub returns, to share his story of the Christmas goblins. It was far from a perfect holiday story. But it clearly chipped away a few of Charles' stones.

Six years later, on that Thursday evening of 5 October, 1843, Charles Dickens (above) faced a real  financial crises. His bank account was over drawn. Sales of his latest serialized book, Martin Chuzzlewit, had landed with a thud in 1842. The man who had hired him to write the Pickwick Papers, William Hall, was increasingly turning the business over his senior partner, Edward Chapman. And it was Chapman who suggested that Dickens' stipend be reduced from £50 to just £37 and 10 shillings a week. The author figured he would need £1,000, to re-balance his checkbook and meet his obligations. Such were his hopes for the creation he conceived on that late evening walk in Manchester.

The creation of this story, like all 15 novels and 27 short stories Dickens would write, began with the title - “A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story at Christmas. ”. It would not be a novel, but a novella, only about 110 pages long and less than 30,000 words total. In keeping with the musical theme, Dickens divided the novella not into chapters but into “Staves” (above).   In American English these 5 lines and the 4 spaces between them are referred to as a staff, upon which musical notes are written. In English, English they are staves. On the morning train returning him to London, Dickens began to dip his pen into ink and scratch his solution onto paper.

Dickens plucked the name of his central character, Ebenezer Scrooge, from a headstone he had come across in an Edinburgh graveyard in 1841 – Ebenezer Lennox Scroggie. The real Ebenezer had been a corn merchant and bottler of “Scroggie's Highland Brandie”. His grave marker called him a “meal man”, but Dickens misread the inscription as a “mean man”, which is why he remembered the name. In truth, Scroggie was not mean or cruel, but he was a social reprobate, a 'dirty old man', who raped a servant girl on a churchyard grave stone, fathering a child, and broke up a solemn convocation of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland by groping the Countess of Mansfield in an adjoining pew.

Scrooge's miserliness seems to have been based on James (Jemmy) Wood (above), famous as the “Gloucester Miser”. He was one of the richest men in England and left an estate worth £900,000. His primary business was the Gloucester Old Bank but Wood also owned an undertaking business. He wore the same clothes for weeks on end, and never took a cab when he could walk. The staff of his bank consisted of himself and just 2 clerks. But where Wood was an active participant in the city, Scrooges' mean spirit toward the poor was found in philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who, when asked about the working poor, replied, "Are there not treadmills, gibbets; even hospitals, poor-rates, New Poor-Law?s"

The name of Scrooge's business partner came from a sign Dickens had seen in his childhood, “Goodge and Marney”.  And Marley's chains were the reality seen by Dickens during his 1842 tour of the Western Penitentiary, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

The crippled Tiny Tim (called “Little Fred” or “Tiny Nick” in early drafts) was based on Dickens' sister Fanny's 5 year old son, Henry Burnett, Jr, whom Charles had met while in Manchester. Dickens agreed to pay for the boy's medical care, adding to his own financial burden.

Bob Cratchit (above, left)  was just one of the 104 clerks Dickens created in his writings. because in the era when computers were still humans, clerks were ubiquitous in the “nation of shop keepers”. Punch described the 1845 tongue in cheek requirements for the job. “First take your son, and soak him well in spelling and writing. Grind in a few ounces of grammar, stuff with arithmetic, and season with geography. Lard with a little Latin, and baste with birch (whipping cane) whenever you find it requisite. Serve up on a high stool, at the first convenient opportunity.”

The common saying went that “A good clerk is always employed”, but the pay was meager and the restrictions were onerous. Applicants were expected to provide a doctor’s certificate as to their health and “steady and sober habits”. And if hired the clerk must “devote himself exclusively to the Company’s service and interest” even when off duty. They must also provide a 2 week salary to their boss, as “as a security for good conduct.” Bob Cratchet worked for 15 shillings a week, or less than $100 in modern American currency.

Dickens wanted the book on sale no later than the Monday before Christmas, which would be 19, December, 1843. That gave him just 74 days to write and edit the story. But he found his publishers, Chapman And Hall, less than enthusiastic. Edwin Chapman suggested either no illustrations or simple woodcut drawings. But Dickens had conceived of the book as a keepsake Christmas present, which would require color art. When Chapman refused, Dickens agreed to pay the full cost of publishing the still uncompleted book himself, and split the profits with the publisher. His hoped for £1,000 profit was already fading into the distance.

The little tale was haunting Dickens. His sister-in-law, wrote that he “...wept and laughed, and wept again” and that he “walked about the black streets of London fifteen or twenty miles many a night”. 

Now, Dickens had to find an artist. When his usual collaborator was already engaged, and with time at a premium, Dickens asked John Leech (above)  to create the art. Leech was journeyman known as a “rapid worker”. But Dickens' shortage of funds forced him to limit the color illustrations to 4, with another 4 black and white etchings.

On Tuesday, 24, October, 1843, Dickens wrote to a Scottish friend, that he had “...plunged headlong into a little scheme ...and set an artist at work upon it.” And by Saturday, 2 December, 1843 his scheme was finished. But not done. Now he began the editing and rewrites. It was not until late in this process that Dickens changed the penultimate line. “ He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, he was a second father”, adding the phrase describing Tiny Tim, “who did not die”. That allowed a happy ending.

On Sunday, 17 December, 1843, Dickens was forced to finally release the book to the printer. Because of the color art work, and the rewrites, if the first edition of 6,000 copies sold out completely at the steep price of 5 shillings each (about $24 today), Dickens stood to profit just £230, far from the £1,000 he had been hoping for. The book went on sale Monday, 19 December. By Christmas eve, every single copy was sold.

The Illustrated London News praised Dickens' “impressive eloquence” and praised the novella's “unfeigned lightness of heart—its playful and sparkling humor... its gentle spirit of humanity".

The reviewer from the literary magazine The Anthenaeum said the story was a "tale to make the reader laugh and cry – to...open his heart to charity even toward the uncharitable”.  

Long time Dickens critic, Theodore Martin, writing in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, fell over himself to praise the author, He called the book, "a noble book, finely felt and calculated to work much social good".

Chapman and Hall were quick to respond to the unexpected success of Dickens little scheme. They immediately issued a second edition, which sold out immediately, and then a third edition before the week – and the year - was over. It also sold out. 

But almost equally quick were the folks at Peter Parley's Illuminated Library, published by Richard Egan Lee and Henry Hewitt. In January of 1844 they issued an almost exact copy of the Christmas Carol, stealing Dickens work and selling it for a mere twopence. Dickens quickly sued and won,  but Lee and Hewitt promptly declared bankruptcy, leaving the author to swallow the £700 in court costs and legal fees.

Over the rest of 1844, 11 more additions of “A Christmas Carol” were released. But because of Dickens' demands for quality, the printing costs remained high, and a year later the author had profited only £744. Stung by what he saw as Edmund Chapman's lack of faith in his work, and burdened with a bill he felt his publishers should have paid, Dickens left Chapman and Hall and moved to the publishing house of Bradbury and Evans.

Since that December of 1843, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol has never been out of print. But perhaps the most telling effect of Dickens' scheme was the story of a Boston factory owner who attended a Christmas eve reading by the author. The very next day this man gave all his employees a Christmas turkey, and the day off. 

But to me. “A Christmas Carol” is proof that if you struggle hard enough and long enough, you can become a journeyman at your profession. And if you work at that profession diligently, once in awhile, if you are lucky, you might achieve the level of genius.

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