Dickens is often credited with virtually inventing Christmas as we now know it and is in any case strongly identified with this festival. This is primarily owing to the immense and enduring popularity of his first 'Christmas Book', A Christmas Carol. In Prose (1843), but his subsequent seasonal offerings during the following quarter-century also contributed to this result. In this lecture I shall be looking at both contemporary and later responses to Dickens's Christmas writings, and considering the extent to which he can be seen as the creator of the modern Christmas.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-founder-of-the-feast-dickens-and-christmas

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 2,000 lectures free to access or download from the website.

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