A Christmas Carol and Other Stories

An immediate bestseller when it was first published in December 1843, A Christmas Carol has endured ever since as a perennial Yuletide favorite. Charles Dickens's beloved tale about the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, who comes to know the meaning of kindness, charity, and goodwill through a haunting Christmas Eve encounter with four ghosts, is a heartwarming celebration of the spirit of Christmas. This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition also includes two other popular Christmas stories by Dickens:The Chimes,in which a man, persuaded by hypocritical cant that the poor deserve their misery, is shown what his pessimistic resignation might lead to in a vision conjured by the pealing of bells, andThe Haunted Man, Dickens's last Christmas tale, which features one of his great comic families, the Tetterbys.

John Irving is the author of numerous novels, including <b>The Cider House Rules</b>, <b>The World According to Garp</b>, <b>A Prayer for Owen Meany</b>, and <b>The Fourth Hand</b>. He lives in Vermont and Toronto.