On Christmas Eve a miser is visited by his dead partner and three Spirits, and has one night to change where his life is heading.
A short, funny, haunting classic that is still the template for Christmas redemption stories. The Victorian sentences can run long and some jokes are dated, but it takes only a few hours to read and it is free. Four and a half out of five (my opinion).
Every guide comes as a video and a full written article. Pick the one you need: the review is spoiler-free, the ending explained is not.
Why the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come never speaks in A Christmas Carol, plus the four ghosts (Marley, Past, Present, Yet to Come) as one symbol map, with stave numbers and our own count. Light spoilers.
A Christmas Carol (December 1843) is a short ghost story by Charles Dickens in five staves, as he calls his chapters. On Christmas Eve the miser Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by his dead partner Jacob Marley and then by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. It is in the public domain, and we worked from the free Project Gutenberg ebook, number 46.
Below you’ll find the four ghosts as a symbol map, with what each one shows Scrooge and why the last one never speaks. The page has full but light spoilers, since the story is a classic.
A short, funny, haunting classic that is still the template for Christmas redemption stories. The Victorian sentences can run long and some jokes are dated, but it takes only a few hours to read and it is free. Four and a half out of five (my opinion). Read it if: you only know it from adaptations and want the original, which is short; you want a classic you can finish in a weekend; you like ghost stories that are warm as well as spooky; you are comparing the ghosts and their symbols for a class or book club. Skip it if: you dislike victorian narration with long, joking sentences; you want a plot with surprises: it is a fable and its shape is well known; you want a modern, subtle take on redemption.
A miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, is visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his partner Jacob Marley and three Spirits, who show him his past, the present and a possible future, so he can change his life.
Charles Dickens. The book's preface is dated December 1843.
It is in the public domain. Project Gutenberg offers it free as ebook number 46, the text this page was built from.
