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A CHRISTMAS

CAROL

Charles Dickens

ELECBOOK CLASSICS

This file is free for individual use only. It must not be altered or resold.

Organisations wishing to use it must first obtain a licence.

Low cost licenses are available. Contact us through our web site

The Electric Book Company Ltd

20 Cambridge Drive, London SE12 8AJ, UK

www.elecbook.com

ELECBOOK CLASSICS

ebc003. Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

Being A Ghost Story Of Christmas

Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

Contents

Click on number to go to Section

PREFACE ................................................................................................5

CHARACTERS .......................................................................................6

STAVE 1. MARLEY’S GHOST.............................................................7

STAVE 2. THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS. .......................30

STAVE 3. THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS...................51

STAVE 4. THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS........................................79

STAVE 5. THE END OF IT................................................................98

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

PREFACE

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 house pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

Their faithful Friend and Servant,

C.D.

December, 1843

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

CHARACTERS

BOB CRATCHIT, clerk to Ebenezer Scrooge.

PETER CRATCHIT, a son of the preceding.

TIM CRATCHIT (‘Tiny Tim’), a cripple, youngest son of Bob

Cratchit.

MR. FEZZIWIG, a kind-hearted, jovial old merchant.

FRED, Scrooge’s nephew.

GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PAST, a phantom showing things past.

GHOST OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT, a spirit of a kind, generous,

and hearty nature.

GHOST OF CHRISTMAS YET TO COME, an apparition showing

the shadows of things which yet may happen.

GHOST OF JACOB MARLEY, a spectre of Scrooge’s former

partner in business.

JOE, a marine-store dealer and receiver of stolen goods.

EBENEZER SCROOGE, a grasping, covetous old man, the

surviving partner of the firm of Scrooge and Marley.

MR. TOPPER, a bachelor.

DICK WILKINS, a fellow apprentice of Scrooge’s.

BELLE, a comely matron, an old sweetheart of Scrooge’s.

CAROLINE, wife of one of Scrooge’s debtors.

MRS. CRATCHIT, wife of Bob Cratchit.

BELINDA AND MARTHA CRATCHIT, daughters of the

preceding.

MRS. DILBER, a laundress.

FAN, the sister of Scrooge.

MRS. FEZZIWIG, the worthy partner of Mr. Fezziwig.

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

STAVE 1.

MARLEY’S GHOST

arley 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

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

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

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

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

A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics

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.”

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ACHRISTMASCAROLCharlesDickensELECBOOKCLASSICSThisfileisfreeforindividualuseonly.Itmustnotbealteredorresold.Organisationswishingtouseitmustfirstobtainalicence.Lowcostlicensesareavailable.Contactusthroughourwebsite©TheElectricBookCo1998TheElectricBookCompanyLtd20CambridgeDrive,LondonSE128AJ,UKwww.elec...

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