A Christmas Carol

“A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, biting, clutching, covetous old sinner” is hardly hero material, but this is exactly what makes A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens such an unforgettable book and its hero, Ebenezer Scrooge such an extraordinarily enduring character. In the book's celebrated opening scene, on the night before Christmas the old miser Ebenezer Scrooge sits in his freezing cold counting house, oblivious to the discomfort of his shivering young assistant Bob Cratchit. Scrooge is unremittingly rude to relatives and visitors alike who drop in to convey their Christmas greetings or ask for a contribution to charity. Scrooge returns to his equally chilly mansion where he has an extraordinary supernatural experience. The spirit of his dead partner, Marley appears recounting tales of eternal suffering that he is condemned to endure because of the mean and uncharitable deeds that Marley did when he was alive.