The story of the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge – a name that has become shorthand for the worst kind of penny-pinching – has been told and retold enough times to make it an irreplaceable part of Anglo-American culture. Charles Dickens rode the wave of nostalgia for lost Christmas traditions sweeping the country at the time to publish a well-received fairy tale that at the same time reinforced the same themes expounded in his previous novels, namely the heartlessness of the industrial system and the privations of the poor.

On this day, December 17, in 1843 Charles Dickens published his book A Christmas Carol. Unlike the story’s protagonist, Dickens designed a lavish cover and set the price at five shillings, affordable to anyone.

Dickens’ major occupation remained the plight of poor children, which in the Christmas Carol came from the two almost feral children, introduced by the Ghost of Christmas Present, named Ignorance and Want. The Ghost warns Scrooge: “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”