Charles Dickens is credited by some with inventing the modern Christmas. That, of course, is far too simple, but there is no doubt that this giant among Victorian writers spotted his fellow countrymen's need for an annual national celebration and exploited it in spectacular fashion. Christmas was rarely acknowledged in print before A Christmas Carol was published in 1843, but the combination of the book's popularity and Victoria's accession to the throne a few years earlier changed for ever the public attitude to the festive season. Prince Albert famously introduced the Christmas tree and the Christmas card was invented in England in 1841.