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. 'Whether the Christmas visions would or would not convert Scrooge, they convert us,' wrote G. K. Chesterton. 'The story sings from end to end like a happy man going home.'

The Modern Library edition also presents two more of Dickens's popular Christmas stories, The Chimes and The Haunted Man, Dickens's last Christmas tale, which features one of his greatest comic families, the Tetterbys. With an introduction by John Irving.