A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens · 1812–1870 · England

Why it matters

A miserly moneylender is shown his past, present, and future by three spirits in a single night, and wakes changed. Dickens's most compact and most read work invented the modern Christmas ghost story and made 'Scrooge' a byword for the ungenerous.

At a glance

Short, direct, and written for reading aloud; the gentlest entry point into Dickens.