Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol
Written by Charles Dickens in 1843, A Christmas Carol is the greatest English Christmas story. It tells the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, an old and doomed miser who is saved from damnation by the intervention of his long dead partner's spirit and by three ghosts which represent Scrooge's past, present and future. Seeing the folly of his ways, Scrooge is changed man - embracing Christmas with an open and willing heart.

Dickens' Preface: "I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it. Their faithful Friend and Servant, C.D. December, 1843"