Christmas has been shaped over the centuries by a wide range of influences. Clement C. Moore, for instance, created a new image for Father Christmas with his 1823 poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas," and the marketing branch of Coca-Cola really solidified Santa's jolly demeanor with an advertising campaign launched in 1931.

But for many of our modern Christmas traditions, we can thank Charles Dickens, a bastion of Victorian-era British literature whose focus on Yuletide stretches far beyond his tale of ghosts, Scrooge and Tiny Tim. A Christmas Carol, first published in 1843, is certainly his most defining claim on Christmas traditions, but Dickens wrote a good many more Christmas stories during his career, and he led the charge transforming the holiday into a celebration with gifts, cards, food, friends and, mostly importantly, family.

Dickens & Christmas, written by his great-great-great-granddaughter Lucinda Hawksley, explores her ancestor's impact on the holiday as well as the holiday's impact on him. This specialized biography discusses the hardscrabble Christmases of Dickens' childhood -- when money was tight, his father was in prison for unpaid debts, and the 12-year-old future writer lived alone and toiled in a factory -- as well as the generous Christmases of his later years, when Dickens took great joy in celebrating the holiday with his large and growing family, and the eventual burden the season became as the public clamored for more of his attention.

Hawksley explains the minor role that Christmas played in England -- and around the world -- in pre-Victorian years, when the Twelfth Night celebration on Jan. 6 was far grander than the holiday itself on Dec. 25. She also demonstrates the ways in which Dickens' writings over the years sparked a Yuletide evolution.

"The lessons expressed in A Christmas Carol were beginning to affect the lives of the Victorian public," the book notes, with examples from 1846, just three years after its publication. "No one, it seems, wanted to be compared to Bob Cratchit's employer."

Starting new Christmas traditions, and revamping old traditions, was becoming very fashionable as people rushed to embrace the new spirit of the season.

It may surprise some readers to know just how firmly Christmas was entwined in Dickens' career -- and, indeed, his life. A Christmas Carol may be tied most overtly to the holiday, but Dickens wrote a LOT about the season over his lengthy career.

Dickens also had a strong moral compass, with a devoted interest in social causes of the day. He also loved the theater, although he fought bitterly to preserve his work from theater "pirates" who stole the fruits of his work both at home and abroad, all of which plays a role in Hawksley's narrative.

In 1857, the Dickens family suffered misfortunes that marred the holiday at home, but that didn't stop England from continuing with its newfound enthusiasm for making merry.

Around the country, the Christmas fervour was in full swing, with people trying to emulate the kind of seasonal cheer they had learnt about from the books of Charles Dickens. ... Ironically, in the Dickens household, the Christmas season was very subdued, and the situation was only going to get worse.

And it pained Dickens to be at odds with his own image.

He could not allow people to see that the Charles Dickens who was already being credited with 'inventing' Christmas, was not a benign Father Christmas-like figure always dispensing joy, but a man as deeply flawed as other human beings, with a very dark side to him.

In fact, his daughter Katey wrote in 1897, in a letter to George Bernard Shaw: "If you could make the public understand that my father was not a joyous, jocose gentleman walking around the world with a plum pudding & a bowl of punch you would greatly oblige me."

The book is heavily seasoned with quotations: from Dickens' fiction, from his letters, from correspondences from his friends and peers in literary circles, from newspaper accounts during his lifetime and reviews of his work, from recollections of his family and friends. These are a wonderful addition to Hawksley's text, bringing home the sense of history as it happened in the eyes of those who were there.

Dickens' death in 1870, at age 58, was "considered a national disaster," the book notes. "For many, Dickens was the man who represented the very spirit of Christmas."

Dickens & Christmas wraps Dickens' life story up with a neat bow. This biographical exploration of the author's life digs deeply into his views of the holiday, and how his opinions -- and the power of his writing -- influenced a nation and, eventually, the world. At the same time, it exposes Dickens' human side, a man who couldn't always live up to his own standards.

This is a very educational book for anyone interested in Dickens' life, Victorian England, the 19th-century literary world and, of course, Christmas traditions. It's an easy, entertaining and eye-opening read that may leave readers clinging even more tightly to their family's own holiday customs.