Between the years 1843 and 1848, every Christmas (with the exception of 1847), Dickens released what he called a "Christmas Book". These five books are all short works with a "Christmasy" theme and (with the exception of one) a "supernatural" element. The only one well-known today is "A Christmas Carol", but it may surprise people to learn that, until the start of the 20th century "The Cricket on the Hearth" was at least as popular as "A Christmas Carol", if not more so.

The five books are:

A Christmas Carol (1843)
The Chimes (1844)
The Cricket on the Hearth (1845)
The Battle of Life (1846)
The Haunted Man (1848)

As is standard in printed editions of Dickens, I have collected these together in a single volume called "Christmas Books".

If you think Dickens is heavy going, give these a try. They are all wonderful stories, each can be read in an hour or so, and they are very different fare to his "heavy" novels.

They have all been carefully compared to a printed edition (that of the "Oxford Illustrated Dickens") and manually formatted accordingly. "A Christmas Carol" is illustrated, the others not.

Enjoy, and comments are, as always, very welcome.


EDIT: 11 Dec 07.

Recreated with improved formatting, preservation of dashes, etc. Uploaded v2.

EDIT: 15 Mar 08

Reformatted "The Battle of Life" to correct a problem with paragraph breaks". Uploaded v4.


Previous download count: 237

boffo stuff

Reformatted "The Battle of Life" to correct a problem with paragraph breaks". Uploaded v4.