Generations of readers have been enchanted by Dickens's A Christmas Carol-perhaps the most cheerful ghost story ever. Written in just a few weeks, A Christmas Carol famously recounts the plight of Bob Cratchit, whose family finds joy even in poverty, and the moral regenreation of his miserly boss Ebenezer Scrooge as he is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. From Scrooge's "Bah!" and "Humbug!" to Tiny Tim's "God bless us every one!" A Christmas Carol shines with warmth, decency, kindness, humility, and the values of the holidays. But beneath its sentimental surface, A Christmas Carol offers another of Dickens's sharply critical portraits of a brutal society, and an inspiring celebration of the possibility of spiritual, psychological, and social change. This new volume collects Dickens's three most renowned "Christmas Books, including The Chimes, a New Year's tale and The Cricket on the Hearth, whose eponymous insect chirps amid happiness.