Book description
INCLUDES 'THE CHIMES' AND 'THE HAUNTED MAN'
Ebenezer Scrooge is unimpressed by Christmas. He has no time for
festivities or goodwill toward his fellow men and is only interested
in money. Then, on the night of Christmas Eve, his life is changed by
a series of ghostly visitations that show him some bitter truths about
his choices.A Christmas Carol is Dickens' most influential book
and a funny, clever and hugely enjoyable story.
Charles Dickens was born on 7 February 1812 in Landport in
Portsmouth. His father was a clerk in the Navy Pay Office who often
ended up in financial trouble. When Dickens was twelve years' old he was
sent to work in a shoe polish factory because his father had been
imprisoned for debt. In 1833 he began to publish short stories and
essays in newspapers and magazines.
The Pickwick Papers
, his first commercial success, was published in 1836, the same year
that he married Catherine Hogarth. The serialisation of
Oliver Twist
began in 1837 while
The Pickwick Papers
was still running. Many other novels followed and Dickens became a
celebrity in America as well as Britain. He also set up and edited the
journals
Household Words (
1850-9) and
All the Year Round
(1859-70). Charles Dickens died on 9 June 1870 leaving his last novel,
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
, unfinished. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.
