A collection of stories, poems, songs and carols, celebrating the Christmas season.

This little treasury of Christmas favorites from the Modern Library is our selection of stories, songs, carols, poems, and more to gladden the heart for the festive season. It is ideal to be dipped into for reading aloud--perhaps around a Christmas tree or in front of a fire in happy re-creation of a holiday scene that Charles Dickens might have described. Beginning with the Bible stories of Christ's Nativity, Christmas Classics leads us on a joyous journey. The beloved stories "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry and "The Fir Tree" by Hans Christian Andersen, along with a Christmas mystery with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, accompany extracts from Dickens's A Christmas Carol and The Pickwick Papers as well as the opening sections of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. The beautiful devotional verses of John Donne and John Milton are included, together with seasonal offerings from poets like Tennyson, Longfellow, Walt Whitman, Sir Walter Scott, Clement Clarke Moore, and Robert Louis Stevenson. And the songs and carols that mean Christmas to so many of us are here: "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful," "The Twelve Days of Christmas," and "Jingle Bells." Selections from the holiday chronicles of Samuel Pepys, the seventeenth-century English diarist, and recipes from Mrs. Beeton's Victorian kitchen--staples like plum pudding and mince pies--complete this bo ok of yuletide cheer. Christmas Classics from the Modern Library is a delightful book to give and to receive and will become a family favorite for countless Christmases yet to come. The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. The series was founded in 1917 bythe publishers Boni and Liveright and eight years later acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer. It provided the foun-dation for their next publishing venture, Random House. The Modern Library has been a staple of the American book trade, providing readers with affordable hard-bound editions of important works of liter-ature and thought. For the Modern Library's seventy-fifth anniversary, Random House redesigned the series, restoring as its emblem the running torchbearer created by Lucian Bernhard in 1925 and refurbishing jackets, bindings, and type, as well as inau-gurating a new program of selecting titles. The Modern Library continues to provide the world's best books, at the best prices. "From the Trade Paperback edition.

This collection is a treasury of short fiction by great writers of the past two centuries. As a literary subject, Christmas has inspired everything from intimate domestic dramas to fanciful flights of the imagination, and the full range of its expression is represented in this anthology.

Behind the Christmas songs we love to sing lie fascinating stories that will enrich your holiday celebration. Taking you inside the nativity of over thirty favorite songs and carols, Ace Collins introduces you to people you’ve never met, stories you’ve never heard, and meanings you’d never have imagined. The next time you and your family sing "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," you’ll have a new understanding of its message and popular roots. You’ll discover how "Angels from the Realms of Glory," with its sublime lyrics and profound theology, helped usher in a quiet revolution in worship. You’ll learn the strange history of the haunting and powerful "O Holy Night," including the song’s surprising place in the history of modern communications. And you’ll step inside the life of Mark Lowry and find out how he came to pen the words to the contemporary classic "Mary, Did You Know?"Still other songs such as "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" trace back to mysterious origins--to ninth-century monks, nameless clergy, and unknown commoners of ages past. Joining hands with such modern favorites as "White Christmas" and "The Christmas Song," they are part of the legacy of inspiration, faith, tears, love, and spiritual joy that is Christmas. From the rollicking appeal of "Jingle Bells" to the tranquil beauty of "Silent Night," the great songs of Christmas contain messages of peace, hope, and truth. Each in its own way expresses a facet of God’s heart and celebrates the birth of his greatest gift to the world--Jesus, the most wonderful Christmas Song of all.

Christmas is both a holiday and a holy day, and from the start it has been associated with poetry, from the song of the seraphim above the manger to the cherished carols around the punch bowl. This garland of Christmas poems contains not only the ones you would insist on finding here ("A Visit from St. Nicholas," "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming," and "The Twelve Days of Christmas" among them) but such equally enchanting though lesser-known Yuletide treasures as Emily Dickinson's "The Savior must have been a docile Gentleman," Anthony Hecht's "Christmas Is Coming," Rudyard Kipling's "Christmas in India," Langston Hughes's "Shepherd's Song at Christmas," Robert Graves's "The Christmas Robin," and happy surprises like Phyllis McGinley's "Office Party," Dorothy Parker's "The Maid-Servant at the Inn," and Philip Larkin's "New Year Poem."

A gorgeous hardcover edition of the timeless holiday classic, featuring stunning full-color illustrations by Arthur Rackham, with a gilt-stamped cloth cover, acid-free paper, sewn bindings, and a silk ribbon marker. No holiday season is complete without Charles Dickens's dramatic and heartwarming story of the transformation of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge through the efforts of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Set on a cold Christmas Eve in Victorian London, and featuring Scrooge's long-suffering and mild-mannered clerk, Bob Cratchit; Bob’s kindhearted son, Tiny Tim; and a host of colorful characters, A Christmas Carol was an instant hit and has been beloved ever since by generations of readers of all ages.