The story of a miser’s transformation, and the most beloved Christmas novel of all time.   An immediate bestseller in the mid-nineteenth century and praised by the Illustrated London News for its “playful and sparkling humor [and] gentle spirit of humanity, ” Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol has remained continuously in print for more than one hundred years, a cherished part of the holiday season for millions of readers.   The novel follows Ebenezer Scrooge, a rich man who has no patience for the merriment of the holidays and prefers counting his money to counting his blessings . . . until a series of spectral visitors awaken the Christmas spirit in his heart. Both a spine-tingling ghost story and a historical portrait of poverty and greed in Victorian England,  A Christmas Carol is a delightful classic for readers young and old.