Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Christmas Carol
    A Christmas Carol
    A Christmas Carol
    Ebook105 pages1 hour

    A Christmas Carol

    By Charles Dickens

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    It's a very special Christmas Eve when Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by three ghosts. Read the original story that has been made into plays, TV and film. This short story is a Christmas classic featuring the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
    This digital edition from Xist Classics features a beautifully formatted and professionally proofed version of Dickens original text.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXist Publishing
    Release dateOct 27, 2014
    ISBN9781623957155
    Author

    Charles Dickens

    Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is the most popular and, many believe, the greatest English author. He wrote many classic novels, including David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and A Christmas Carol. Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities are available from Brilliance Audio.

    Read more from Charles Dickens

    Related to A Christmas Carol

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Hodja and the Hungry Coat A Turkish Tale

      Oct 1, 2021

      Hodja and the Hungry Coat A Turkish Tale
      2 min read

    • Article

      Face Forward

      Jun 3, 2023

      Face Forward
      9 min read

    • Article

      Going Gothic How To Tell The Goth-iest Story Ever

      Oct 1, 2021

      WHAT DO DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN, AND YOUR SISTER’S LACE-UP COMBAT BOOTS ALL HAVE IN COMMON? If your answer was “they’re super cool,” you’d be right! But if your answer was “they’re all part of the gothic’tradition,” you’d be even righter. Being gothic

      3 min read

    • Article

      Chinese Zodiac

      Jan 1, 2023

      According to Chinese legend, 12 animals gathered on a riverbank to race to the Jade Emperor at his Heavenly Palace. A pig, a dog, a rooster, a monkey, a goat, a horse, a snake, a dragon, a rabbit, a tiger, an ox, and a rat all wanted to be first. The

      1 min read

    • Article

      Get To Know Cardiff

      Feb 5, 2022

      Get To Know Cardiff
      1 min read

    • Article

      Little Chef

      Nov 1, 2019

      Little Chef
      2 min read

    • Article

      Remarkable Rabbits

      Jan 1, 2023

      Remarkable Rabbits
      2 min read

    • Article

      Mighty Vesuvius Erupts

      Feb 1, 2023

      Mighty Vesuvius Erupts
      3 min read

    • Article

      Wildfire The Story of Sculptor Edmonia Lewis

      Feb 1, 2023

      Wildfire The Story of Sculptor Edmonia Lewis
      6 min read

    • Article

      Notes From The Isles

      Dec 15, 2023

      Notes From The Isles
      4 min read

    • Article

      Yuletide Reading

      Sep 24, 2020

      Many classic novels and short stories contains Christmas scenes-merry or otherwise. Can you indentify the works from which these holiday passages are excerpted? 1 “Merry Christmas, little daughters! I’m glad you began at once, and hope you will keep

      3 min read

    • Article

      Merry Christmas: A Reading Of Holiday Classics By Monitor Staff (audio)

      Dec 17, 2019

      A dive into venerable old writings can add to the warmth of the holiday hearth. Even more so when they’re read aloud.

      12 min read

    • Article

      All I Want For Christmas

      Dec 16, 2020

      IT was more than an icicle. More like an icy boulder, oversized and murkily white, faceted like a cartoon jewel and, shortly, dripping. It had lurked beneath a low stone bridge at the bottom of the wood, where sycamore thickets bald for winter gave w

      18 min read

    • Article

      Letters To The Editor

      Dec 16, 2020

      WE recently bought two young donkeys. They had already experienced much in their short lives: transport from Ireland, several homes and a horse fair. In time, they settled, although the little grey gelding remained silent. We were astonished to disco

      2 min read

    • Article

      Tales from Titchmarsh

      Nov 18, 2021

      Tales from Titchmarsh
      3 min read

    • Article

      ‘Til Death Do Us Part

      Oct 26, 2023

      ‘Til Death Do Us Part
      5 min read

    • Article

      Dawn Neesom Mind Of My Own

      Nov 28, 2023

      We should all take a moment to remember good – and bad – times Marley was dead: to begin with.’ Possibly one of the most famous opening lines from one of the most famous Christmas stories ever- Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. It doesn’t matter

      4 min read

    • Article

      Cowboy Carols

      Nov 1, 2023

      Cowboy Carols
      5 min read

    • Article

      Not Quite The LAST STRAW

      Dec 6, 2023

      Not Quite The LAST STRAW
      6 min read

    • Article

      Notes From The Isles

      Apr 14, 2023

      Yet again nemesis has smothered my hubris. Having boasted of my expertise in getting the car up our steep, icy track, I awoke to find myself snowed in, near the top of a glacier, totally cut off from all traffic. A nephew and his wife, who were comin

      4 min read

    • Article

      Perfect Prose II

      May 15, 2020

      Perfect Prose II
      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Christmas Carol

    4/5

    5,070 ratings147 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Wonderful illustrations by PJ Lynch sets this edition above the others. The full page illustrations throughout the book helps bring the story alive with the scenes of Victorian England.
    • 5/5
      What a classic Christmas story!

      It has been a very long time since I read the book and I wish I had re-read it before now. I am sure everyone knows the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, so I will not go into a long drawn out review. However, I will say this: it is better to be a giving spirit than to be a "scrooge" as having the spirit of Christmas makes you feel better as a person.

      Loved this book once again and I will have to make it a Christmas tradition to read it every year from now on. Five "Christmas" stars!
    • 5/5
      A delight to re-visit this classic Christmas story.
    • 3/5
      I've read this a couple of times. Dickens was paid by the word & writes like it. He spends way too much time digressing into idiotic areas & filling up space. Example: "Marley was dead, dead as a door nail, although why a door nail should be deader than a coffin nail..." or something like that & goes on about it forever. Never does come to a conclusion - the proper one being a door nail is dead because it was hammered through the door & clinched on the opposite side, hence is dead. Coffin nails are hammered straight in, hence can move with the wood. His stories are classics, but I detest his writing style. Probably worth reading once.
    • 4/5
      A trifle heavy-handed on the religion, but only a trifle, and it is a story about Christmas. In any case, one of Dickens' classics, and deservedly so.
    • 5/5
      Most adaptations you've seen are probably true to the book. They largely have been in my case. It's still worth a read. At the very least, you'll read a section of the story that has (as far as I can tell) never been adapted into any film or made-for-TV special. You know how Scrooge sees Belle walk out of his life? Well, the Ghost of Christmas Past shows him more still!
    • 5/5
      Audiobook - I never tire of this wonderful Christmas tale.
    • 2/5

      4/10.

      A victorian morality tale about the old and bitter Ebenezer Scrooge and the profound experience he has one christmas eve. He is visited by three ghosts who tell him that unless he changes his ways he will be doomed.

    • 5/5
      A book that stands the test of time and I read this with the approach of Christmas! A very enjoyable book even if you know exactly what is going to happen, worth worth it and it is quite a small book.
    • 5/5
      This is a classic, of course, and it was well worth reading the first edition text. Not much left for the imagination due to the proliferation of this story in a variety of media, but certainly worth the minor effort to read in its original form.
    • 4/5
      An enjoyable tale about a vicious man who sees the error of his way with a little spiritual help.
    • 3/5
      Charles Dickens' classic story of Ebeneezer Scrooge and the change of heart that he undergoes by seeing 4 ghosts in a night (his old partner Marley, and the three Christmas spirits - Past, Present, and Future). As well as all the various portrayals (Mickey, Muppets, etc, etc, etc,) its a plain and good story. Nothing altogether wrong with it, nothing major to it, and typical in Dickensian fashion -ie. the ten words to describe something that one word would have sufficed (oh the joy of being paid PER WORD). Still, a classic that should be read at least once by one and all.
    • 4/5
      Everyone knows the plot to Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol: Scrooge is visited by the ghosts of Past, Present, and Future; he realizes that life is about more than money and that he’d like to be remembered well by friends and family. Its story is familiar and timeless. Scrooge learns that the true meaning of Christmas is found in sharing one’s money and time, actively loving the world as God did by giving us his son. In terms of bending time as a plot device, it was probably pretty cutting edge when written; also, Dickens captures ugliness and pettiness like few others can. It’s an enjoyable short read from a writer who composes with true emotion, advocating for the plight of the poor. I wonder what Dickens’ writings would have been like if he’d been born into a less class conscious culture, one where people were freer to move about the economic spectrum.
    • 5/5
      Every year at Christmas the kids and I reread A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens but this year I won a copy of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Illustated by Francine Haskins and  Afterword by Kyra E. Hicks on Library Thing. This popular classic was not changed it was wonderfully illustrated with contemporary line drawings as it brings all of the characters to life as Black Victorians. The Afterword highlights over 100 African Americans, Black British and Canadian actors that have performed A Christmas Carol over the last century demonstrating this story belongs to everyone. Review also posted on Instagram @borenbooks, Library Thing, Go Read, Goodreads/StacieBoren, Amazon, and my blog at readsbystacie.com
    • 5/5
      Due to circumstances beyond my control, I have not completed the ritual reading of this tale in the run up to the festive season, for the past three years. This year I have and Christmas seems complete!I doubt there is a single reader in the world, nay, the universe who does not know the story of the miser forced to face his own unpleasant nature and so, I shall not bore you with a resume of the plot: suffice to say, that after more readings than I would care to admit (well into double, if not quite triple figures!), Dickens still manages to supply that warm glow of Christmas. We are lead to believe that, having turned over a new leaf, Scrooge is forgiven his past and yet, we still associate the name with penny pinching, rather than the generosity of the reborn Scrooge: perhaps we have to be a little more forgiving.....MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!
    • 4/5
      The classic Dickens tale of Scrooge and Marley, in which Charles Dickens set out to create a Christmas tradition...and succeeded, if our current December madness is any indicator. This tale remains popular because it is at once heartwarming and grim, painting a picture of a world that Dickens chose to chastise his whole life for not taking care of those that lived and worked in obscurity and poverty. The picture of courage, represented by the Cratchits, particularly Tiny Tim, is an attractive one, compelling us all to reexamine our own lives and determine if there is some way we can overcome our personal obstacles with half as much grace and dignity.
    • 4/5
      Did you know that when Dickens wrote this little novella in 1843 as part of his ‘Christmas Series’, it changed all our Christmases? Traditional practices were going out of fashion at the time, and the book revived them. Groaning boards of turkey and iced cake, presents, dancing and mistletoe were all saved for our enjoyment…or not! At the same time it was a clear comment on early Victorian society, as when the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals two children saying; “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”For me, the book was a tradition in itself. Every year, as my children grew, I’d read it, over four or five nights, ending the story with Scrooge’s transformation on Xmas Eve. Heady days!
    • 5/5
      Wonderfully and vividly written. Read by Jim Dale!
    • 4/5
      While I have seen several TV productions of A Christmas Carol — the George C. Scott version as a child and the Patrick Stewart version more recently — I had never read Dickens’ book. When you hear the phrases “Bah Humbug” and “to be a Scrooge,” most people know the origin and meanings behind the words. They have become part of our lexicon. After the reading Dickens’ prose, I felt more sympathetic to Scrooge and understood how his lonely childhood led to his grouchy demeanor. As the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future show him his life and what could be, you slowly see Scrooge’s crustiness melt away as he becomes a better person. A timeless story of redemption.
    • 5/5
      I read this book for the first time last year and I'm astounded. I wish I had read this book years ago. Dickens is a phenomenal author. Every year at Christmas we watch every version of A Christmas Carol we can possible find.
    • 5/5
      I've seen multiple television and film adaptations of A Christmas Carol, but I don't think I had read the original story/novella before now. While this was my first experience with the book, it won't be my last. Dickens' tale is full of nuances that are missing from the adaptations I've seen. The humorous parts were funnier and the melancholy parts were more heart-wrenching than the movies. I wish I could have experienced the book just once without images from the films crowding my mind. I'd like to form my own image of Dickens' descriptions of Scrooge, his office, his home, Marley's ghost, and the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future.
    • 3/5
      So my animosity toward all things Dickens continues. It's not that I don't like this story. Who could dislike it, having seen it umpteen-million times since childhood and knowing that it's basically responsible for Christmas as we know it today? But really, Dickens is so sentimental and so melodramatic. Every character stands for something but isn't really a person. Tiny Tim--need I say more? I read this, and fairly quickly too, and I finished it, which I haven't done with a Dickens work since I was forced to read Hard Times in college. But yet again, I am reminded that Dickens' style and subject matter is the antithesis of what I like to read. I should honestly stop trying, but his belovedness confounds me. Now you'll be saying that I'm the Scrooge!
    • 5/5
      This was brilliant, Patrick Stewart does an excellent job portraying the different characters.
    • 3/5
      The imagery Dickens creates in this novel is wonderful. The face in the door knocker, the visions of Marley and the ghosts are details with so few, yet powerful words, that Dickens puts a strong and vibrant image in my head each time I read this book. This is a great classic that I read every year one week before Christmas.
    • 5/5
      Loved the book. Wonderful story.
    • 4/5
      For something that's had a thousand adaptations, the original holds up very well. Short and sweet and sentimental.
    • 5/5
      Excellent adaptation of the classic Christmas story
    • 5/5
      Great story and great narration! A Christmas Carol has been on my TBR list for more years than I can remember but I just never got around to it. I've seen various productions on TV or in movies but never read the actual story.

      Audible gave away the version with Tim Curry doing the narration, last year I believe, but still I didn't listen. It took a good friend mentioning that she was listening to it yesterday to get me going. Well, that and the fact that I still need five books for my annual challenge and this was short.

      I loved it. Tim Curry did a fantastic job and I even found myself tearing up three times. Yes, I'm PMSing but still...
    • 4/5
      A charming story re-read on Christmas Eve. Bah Humbug Scrooge is visited by the Spirits of his past, present & possible future, then wakes in delight realising he isn’t dead but has more life to make amends and spread compassion & happiness.As relevant in these COVID times as it has always been .
    • 5/5
      A Christmas Carol is a classic that makes my eyes do that weird leaking thing every time.I loved listening to the story on audio. Simon Prebble does a masterful job on the narration. I was told a story; I experienced it.While this is a Christmas story, it's one whose message we should carry with us each day of the year.

    Book preview

    A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

    A Christmas Carol

    A Ghost Story of Christmas

    Charles Dickens

    Xist Classics

    TUSTIN, CALIFORNIA

    Originally Published in 1843

    Cover Design by Jacob Lee

    ISBN: 9781623957155

    This edition published in 2014 by Xist Publishing

    PO Box 61593

    Irvine, CA 92602

    www.xist publishing.com

    Ordering Information:

    Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the Special Sales Department at the address above.

    A Christmas Carol/Charles Dickens. – Xist Publishing ed.

    ISBN

    9781623957155

    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.

    1 Marley’s Ghost

    Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

    Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

    Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don’t know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.

    The mention of Marley’s funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet’s Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot—say Saint Paul’s Churchyard for instance—literally to astonish his son’s weak mind.

    Scrooge never painted out Old Marley’s name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him.

    Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.

    External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn’t know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often came down handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

    Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me? No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o’clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men’s dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!

    But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call nuts to Scrooge.

    Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve—old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already—it had not been light all day—and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

    The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

    A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you! cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach.

    Bah! said Scrooge, Humbug!

    He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge’s, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

    Christmas a humbug, uncle! said Scrooge’s nephew. You don’t mean that, I am sure?

    I do, said Scrooge. Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.

    Come, then, returned the nephew gaily. What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.

    Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, Bah! again; and followed it up with Humbug.

    Don’t be cross, uncle! said the nephew.

    What else can I be, returned the uncle, when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in ’em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will, said Scrooge indignantly, every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!

    Uncle! pleaded the nephew.

    Nephew! returned the uncle sternly, "keep Christmas

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1