A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens’s ghost story of Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old man of business in London who is visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his late partner, Jacob Marley, and by three spirits.

Start reading6 staves, about 29,000 words

Famous quotes

• Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.

  Stave IIn context

  • Life & Death

• “Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!”

  Stave IIn context

  • Christmas

• If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.

  Stave IIn context

  • Charity

• I wear the chain I forged in life

  Stave IIn context

  • Responsibility

• “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

  Stave IIn context

  • Business
  • Charity

• God bless us every one!

  Stave IIIIn context

  • Christmas
  • God

• Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child.

  Stave IIIIn context

  • Charity
  • Life & Death

• 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.

  Stave IIIIn context

  • Charity
  • Education

• I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.

  Stave IVIn context

  • Christmas
  • Time

• I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

  “Ebeneezer Scrooge”, in A Christmas Carol by Charles DickensIn context

  • Christmas

• I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world.

  Stave VIn context

  • Christmas
  • Happiness

• His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

  Stave VIn context

  • Happiness
  • Laughter

• It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

  Stave VIn context

  • Christmas

Contents

1. Preface
2. Stave IMarley’s Ghost
3. Stave IIThe First of the Three Spirits
4. Stave IIIThe Second of the Three Spirits
5. Stave IVThe Last of the Spirits
6. Stave VThe End of It