A Christmas Carol is the most famous; heart-warming and chilling festive story of them all. In these pages we meet Ebenezer Scrooge; whose name is synonymous with greed and parsimony: 'Every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips; should be boiled with his own pudding; and buried with a stake of holly through his heart'. This attitude is soon challenged when the ghost of his old partner; Jacob Marley; returns from the grave to haunt him on Christmas Eve. Scrooge is then visited in turn by three spirits of Christmas Past; Present and Future; each one revealing the error of his ways and gradually melting the frozen heart of this old miser; leading him towards his redemption. On the journey we take with Scrooge we encounter a rich array of Dickensian characters including the poor Cratchit family with the ailing Tiny Tim and the generous and jolly Fezziwig. When Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in 1843 he fashioned an enduring gift to the world; capturing the essence of the love; kindness and generosity of the Christmas season. It is a timeless classic and the story's uplifting magic remains as potent today as when it was first published.