Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol was first published in 1843. Chapman & Hall issued the novella in London on 19 December, with illustrations by John Leech and the full title A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas.
Dickens wrote the work during a period of financial pressure and completed it in roughly six weeks in late 1843. Its story follows Ebenezer Scrooge, a miser visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. The supernatural encounters force him to confront memory, social responsibility and the human cost of poverty.
The first edition was designed as a festive gift book, bound in red cloth with gilt-edged pages and priced at five shillings. Its initial 6,000 copies sold out by Christmas Eve, leading to further editions soon afterward. A common mix-up is to remember 1844, when many additional copies and editions appeared; the original publication date was in December 1843.