The following links will take you to the Preface and the five parts – which Charles Dickens called Staves – that make up A Christmas Carol which you can read on our site:

Preface.

Stave 1. Marley’s Ghost.

Stave 2. The First Of The Three Spirits.

Stave 3. The Second Of The Three Spirits.

Stave 4. The Last Of The Three Spirits.

Stave 5. The End Of It.

If you would like the full address of these pages not as links (e.g. to copy for academic purposes) then these can be found on our Study Links page.

Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve—old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them.