A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

1

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens (#0 in our series by Charles Dickens)

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Title: A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

2

Author: Charles Dickens

Release Date: Dec, 1992 [EBook #46] [Most recently updated: September 1, 2002]

Edition: 13

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A CHRISTMAS CAROL ***

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

by Charles Dickens

I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

Their faithful Friend and Servant, C. D. December, 1843.

Stave 1: Marley's Ghost

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.

Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.