Why do we dream of a white Christmas? Why do we get Christmas cards with snow on them?
The culprit is the writer Charles Dickens. His childhood coincided with a decade of freakishly cold winters. Thus in his writings he describes persistently a Britain smothered in snow on Christmas Day, his inspiration coming from his childhood.
Six of Dickens’s first nine Christmases were white. One of these fell in the winter of 1813-14, when Britain’s last Frost Fair was held on a frozen River Thames in London and Dickens was nearly two years old.
Category: Christmas / Charles Dickens / Snow
This year marks the bicentenary of Charles Dickens. The famous British writer and author created some of the best known characters in English literature, including Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Miss Havisham. Dickens was inspired by what he saw in the streets of London. Hence the term Dickensian London.
In his day Dickens saw the capital, its hustle and bustle, its glittering promise and grimy streets and the extremes of poverty and wealth experienced by those who lived there. Dickens was known to spend hours pacing the streets of London, especially at the dead of night, drawing inspiration from what he saw around him. Alex Werner, the curator of the Museum of London: “It triggered his imagination.” He added, “He knew its alleyways and streets better than anyone.”
The Charles Dickens Museum is housed in Dickens former family house in Doughty Street. It was here he wrote ‘Oliver Twist’ and ‘Nicholas Nickelby’. The museum, which opened in 1925, holds the world’s most important collection of Dickens items, including his pens, letters and furniture.
Category: Charles Dickens / Bicentenary / London
Why do we dream of a white Christmas? Why do we get Christmas cards with snow on them? The culprit is the writer Charles Dickens. His childhood coincided with a decade of freakishly cold winters. Thus in his writings he describes persistently a Britain smothered in snow on Christmas Day, his inspiration coming from his childhood.
Six of Dickens’s first nine Christmases were white. One of these fell in the winter of 1813-14, when Britain’s last Frost Fair was held on a frozen River Thames in London and Dickens was nearly two years old. The ice around Blackfriars Bridge was thick enough to bear the weight of an elephant. So when in 1843, he came to write about the Ghost of Christmas Past, he did so with the spirit of those colder Christmases, with “quick wheels dashing the hoar frost and snow from the darker leaves of the evergreen like spray”. The story is now credited with establishing the Victorian genre of the Christmas story and spurring a revival of the celebration of Christmas in early Victorian England.
Category: Christmas / Charles Dickens / Snow
Why do we dream of a white Christmas? Why do we get Christmas cards with snow on them? The culprit is the writer Charles Dickens. His childhood coincided with a decade of freakishly cold winters. Thus in his writings he describes persistently a Britain smothered in snow on Christmas Day, his inspiration coming from his childhood.
Six of Dickens’s first nine Christmases were white. One of these fell in the winter of 1813-14, when Britain’s last Frost Fair was held on a frozen River Thames in London and Dickens was nearly two years old. The ice around Blackfriars Bridge was thick enough to bear the weight of an elephant.
So when in 1843, he came to write about the Ghost of Christmas Past, he did so with the spirit of those colder Christmases, with “quick wheels dashing the hoar frost and snow from the darker leaves of the evergreen like spray”. The story is now credited with establishing the Victorian genre of the Christmas story and spurring a revival of the celebration of Christmas in early Victorian England.
Category: Christmas / Charles Dickens / Snow
