A Christmas Carol

First published on 19 December 1843, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol follows Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly London businessman whose contempt for Christmas seems inseparable from his indifference to the suffering of others. On Christmas Eve, the ghost of his former partner, Jacob Marley, appears to warn him of the fate that awaits him, followed by three spirits who lead him through memories of the past, the realities of the present and the consequences of a future left unchanged. Among the scenes of Victorian London, the warmth of the Cratchit household and the fragile figure of Tiny Tim, Scrooge is forced to confront the life he has made for himself.

Part ghost story, part moral fable, A Christmas Carol is one of Dickens’s most enduring works, combining supernatural suspense with a fierce indictment of poverty, greed and social indifference. Its vision of redemption rests not simply on festive goodwill, but on the possibility that a person might still change—and that compassion carries responsibilities beyond the private household. First published as an illustrated book, this compact novella helped shape the modern cultural imagination of Christmas while retaining the darker edges of Dickens’s social conscience.

From the book

“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.”

— Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

On A Christmas Carol

“Very few stories embody a human truth so definitively that we cannot think of the truth without remembering the story.”

— Michel Faber, The Guardian