11/14/25
I just now had the whim to query Claude AI as to whether it was aware of anyone (fringe or establishment) who has questioned Charles Dickens' authorship of "A Christmas Carol." It proceeded to take the part of a cynic—even against AI as a research tool, which I really should have called it on (unless it hates ChatGPT as a rival). As I think back on the conversation, it surprises me that it would slip into the role of the worst cynic imaginable. For example, in answer to a question, I told it honestly that with one exception, I had not found a single open-minded scholar. It then shot back a list of things for me to consider, the first of which was, "Maybe you think that anyone who disagrees with you is not open-minded?"

Never mind all that. What this made me realize, is that up until now my evidence has been too deeply-buried. For example, in order to logically prove it's a foregone conclusion that Mathew Whittier would have had a personal introduction to Charles Dickens when the latter was in Boston, in 1842, I can say that Mathew had been publishing since he was 12 years old, in 1825; that he was a Dickens fan; and that he was personal friends with Oliver Wendell Holmes. But then I have to prove those things. I can't prove he was a child prodigy, without disproving a scholar's belief that someone else wrote his early work. That's a seven-hour debate, right there. I can't prove he was personal friends with Holmes, unless I disprove a second scholar's mistaken conclusion that someone else wrote the travelogue in which that statement appears. I can prove Mathew was a Dickens fan, by a personal letter he wrote to his brother, but that, also, would take time to drag out and share.

In other words, just to prove these simple elements might take a week's worth of arguing and sharing of evidence.

I've done the required research over the past 16 years. But as I told Claude, I can't share 16 years of evidence with him inside of a five-minute discussion.

However—and this is my point—with my new book, I don't have this problem anymore. This evidence isn't buried behind a cascading series of other things I have to prove first. It's right there in Dickens' handwritten draft. One piece of evidence after another.

Now, you only have to read the book.

They won't, of course. They will make some excuse. Why bother to purchase and read a book, when they already know it can't possibly be true? So they are perfectly safe, and their world is perfectly safe.

(Perhaps more to the point, their jobs are perfectly safe.)

But if anybody ever breaks ranks—say, out of curiosity—and actually reads "The Sacred Carol"—it could get very messy, indeed.

My book can be purchased from Amazon.com.

Sincerely,

Stephen Sakellarios, M.S.