Christmas Carol : And Other Christmas Stories with a New Afterword

From "A Christmas Carol," the beloved tale of Scrooge's transformation from humbug to philanthrope, to "A Christmas Tree," which gives a child's-eye-view of Victorian Christmas, to "Christmas Dinner," a celebration of a divided family's reunion, to the Christmas chapters from "The Pickwick Papers," the Christmas stories of Charles Dickens reserve a special place in readers' memories and hearts.

As a child, Charles Dickens (1812-70) came to know not only hunger and privation, but also the horror of the infamous debtors' prison and the evils of child labor. A surprise legacy brought release from the night-mare of prison and "slave" factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years' formal schooling. He taught himself shorthand and worked as a parliamentary reporter until his writing career took off with the publication of Sketches by Boz (1836) and The Pickwick Papers (1837). As a novelist and magazine editor, Dickens had a long run of serialized success through Our Mutual Friend (1864-65). In later years, ill health slowed him down, but he continued his popular dramatic readings from his fiction to an adoring public, which included Queen Victoria. At his death, The Mystery of Edwin Drood remained unfinished. Frederick Busch is the author of more than twenty works of fiction, including Closing Arguments, Girls, and The Mutual Friend, a novel about Charles Dickens. The winner of numerous awards, he is the Edgar W. B Fairchild Professor of Literature at Colgate University.