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A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol

Table of Contents
A Christmas Carol....................................................................................................................................................1 CharlesDickens.............................................................................................................................................2 Stave 1: Marley's Ghost.................................................................................................................................3 Stave 2: The First of the Three Spirits.........................................................................................................12 Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits.....................................................................................................20 Stave 4: The Last of the Spirits....................................................................................................................30 Stave 5: The End of It..................................................................................................................................37

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A Christmas Carol

A ChristmasCarol

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A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens

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.

Charles Dickens

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AChristmas Carol

Stave 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, ofmy 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 thefuneral, 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 histaking 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 wasknown 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 grind− stone, 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,...