A Christmas Carol

'If I could work my will,’ said Scrooge, indignantly, ‘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.’ Miser and misanthropist Ebenezer Scrooge hates the festive season. Can the visitations of his dead business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas past, present and yet to come shake him from his habits, to show him the true value of Christmas? Dickens’s 1843 story was written in response to the plight of the poor, the hungry, the exploited and the uneducated in Victorian society, suggesting that the true test of a society is the way it treats its children. This Collins Classroom Classics edition includes an introduction and glossary to support students, written by an experienced teacher.

Richard Vardy is a Head of English at Reigate College in Surrey. He has written a number of textbooks, study guides and workbooks.