A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol in Prose, Or Being a Ghost Story of Christ.

G. K. Chesterton wrote that Charles Dickens's "greatest work may yet prove to be the perpetuation of the joyful mystery of Christmas." A Christmas Carol is one of Dickens's best works and among the most widely read stories of all time. This popular tale created a universal figure: the unforgettable Scrooge, the inveterate miser who learns the meaning of love.

The heart of A Christmas Carol is Scrooge's relationship with his underpaid clerk, Bob Cratchit. Cratchit is exploited, but this does not turn the Cratchit family against Scrooge – and this Scrooge is unable to understand. Just as the name of Scrooge has grown to mean a "miser" (the word sounds a bit like "squeezing" or "grasping"), the word Cratchit sounds a bit like "crutch." The Cratchit's child, Tiny Tim, is a lame but loving soul, a lamb Scrooge must learn to comfort. Only then will the spirit of Christmas truly descend into the world.