A Christmas Carol is Charles Dickens’ most famous book and arguably the world’s most read Christmas story. Here, we follow Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly and mean-spirited businessman, who undergoes a total transformation and becomes a kind person after being haunted by ghosts on Christmas Eve. It is one of the great classics of world literature, here accompanied by other classics from Dickens’ Christmas repertoire, like A Christmas Tree and The Seven Poor Travellers. CHARLES DICKENS [1812–1870], born in Portsmouth, England, was the most popular English-language novelist of his time. He created a fictional world that reflected the social and technological changes during the Victorian era. Among his most famous works are David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, and The Pickwick Papers.

A miser learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors review his past and foretell his future.

'What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?' Ebenezer Scrooge is a bad-tempered skinflint who hates Christmas and all it stands for, but a ghostly visitor foretells three apparitions who will thaw Scrooge's frozen heart. A Christmas Carol has gripped the public imagination since it was first published in 1843, and it is now as much a part of Christmas as mistletoe or plum pudding. This edition reprints the story alongside Dickens's four other Christmas Books: The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man. All five stories show Dickens at his unpredictable best, jumbling together comedy and melodrama, genial romance and urgent social satire, in pursuit of his aim 'to awaken some loving and forbearing thoughts, never out of season in a Christian land'. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Charles Dickens overcame much hardship to become the greatest writer of his age. His life story embodies the harsh realities and enduring hope of 19th-century London. He was the eighth child born to a family whose lavish living soon outpaced their income. Eventually, Charles' father was imprisoned for his debts and the twelve-year-old boy was forced to work at a shoe blackening factory. Young Dickens quickly fell into poverty, and this dark experience, along with feelings of abandonment, deeply impacted his societal views, and therefore his writings. Largely self-educated, Dickens became a prolific writer of fifteen novels, five novellas, and regular contributions to several journals. The unexpected popularity of A Christmas Carol-which has never gone out of print-tied him irrevocably to the Christmas season and elevated the holiday to the phenomenon we know today. Readers around the world have been profoundly moved by his story; the mixture of memorable imagery, unequivocal truth, and seasonal charity brings heart-warming cheer to readers young and old. Each of Dickens' festive stories inspires warmth and generosity, reminding us to cherish and encourage peace and goodwill to all.