Dickens created 989 named characters, which increased his popularity. Every one of his major works has been adapted for either stage or screen. A Christmas Carol inspired more than a dozen films, from Alistair Sims' Scrooge in 1951 to Jim Carrey's voicing of the same character in Disney's 2009, 3-D animated film.

　　The original 1843 manuscript（手稿） of A

　　Christmas Carolis on display at the Morgan Library. Dickens wrote everything by hand, in tiny script, with a quill pen. Remarkably, the manuscript is both the first and the final draft, says Kiely, the curator. You can see where Dickens has changed the name of the first chapter from "Old Marley's Ghost" to "Marley's Ghost". Further down the page, he has canceled an entire section.

　　"He realizes he's not writing a novel, and he only has a very short time in which to write this," Kiely explains. "He's got to keep it tight, in order for it to be published in time for Christmas."

　　Dickens wrote all the time. He traveled with a portable inkwell and a supply of quill pens. He was working on his last novel, Our Mutual Friend, en route from France to London when the train he was on crashed.

　　Dickens died five years later in 1870, after a stroke at age 58. As a comic talent and a social reformer, Dickens' achievement was extraordinary, says novelist T.C. Boyle, who eamed a doctorate in Victorian literature.

　　"He achieved what any great artist achieves - a body of work that has entertained and delighted and instructed people down through the ages. That's what we all hope for," says Boyle.

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