alexunbalanced reblogged your post and added: “idk if y’all knew this but a christmas carol is so far hilarious like...”
At times like this, it is relevant to remember that Charles Dickens was paid by the word
generally speaking, dickens was paid by the installment, not the individual word. it sort of rounds out to the same thing because the installments had to be so long to publish, but imo it’s no different than a tv writer having to produce an episode that’ll be so long. it’s actually really fascinating how the installments and serials of the 19th century so very closely mirror fanfiction and esp work subscriptions on ao3 and it’s endlessly fascinating. nothing is ever new. here is more info.
a christmas carol tho was actually just published as a novella, for which dickens had to put up the cost of printing.
