The Christmas Books: No. 9 (Pocket Classics) - Hardcover

Dickens' definitive Christmas tales including A Christmas Carol and four other stories are collected in a beautifully produced small hardback with embossed covers on the front and back. The Christmas Books were first published in a single volume in 1852, bringing together five stories which Charles Dickens wrote specially for the Christmas season, beginning in 1843 with A Christmas Carol. Over the next three years Dickens published "The Chimes," "The Cricket on the Hearth," and "The Battle of Life." There was no story in 1847 but a fifth, "The Haunted Man," appeared in 1848. The Christmas Books, and in particular A Christmas Carol, are considered so influential that they are credited with inventing our modern notion of Christmas itself.

Charles Dickens was born in 1812 near Portsmouth and lived until 1870. The Christmas Books were first published in a single volume in 1852, bringing together five stories which Charles Dickens wrote specially for the Christmas season, beginning in 1843 with A Christmas Carol. Over the next three years Dickens published The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth and The Battle of Life. There was no story in 1847 but a fifth, The Haunted Man, appeared in 1848.