The Christmas Books (in 2 volume) by Charles Dickens

An unsurpassed blending of vibrant storytelling and social conscience, A Christmas Carol is one of Dickens' most perennially popular stories. It tells of Scrooge, now a byword for misanthropy and avarice, who is transported through time to the Christmases of his childhood, of the present and of the future. Heeding the dreadful warning of what is to be if Scrooge does not mend his ways, the old miser repents and is suffused with Christmas spirit.

Along with The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth, A Christmas Carol celebrates the joys of the festive season. Each of these books is politically provocative and aims to stimulate the reader's pity and charity for the poor, but the tone is so intimate and the style so humorous that poverty and ignorance yield to generosity and compassion.