{"product_id":"2940013318380","title":"Make your holiday planning and gift giving easier with The Complete Christmas Collection: Book Four - The Traditional Christmas Story Collection \u0026#x2013; This collection contains great complete classic books that you can share with your family.","description":"SNEAK PEAK:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The Traditional Christmas Story Collection\" contains great complete classic books that you can share with your family.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTable of Contents\u003cbr\u003e A CHRISTMAS CAROL Page 3 to 81\u003cbr\u003e A Kidnapped Santa Claus Page 82 to 91\u003cbr\u003e The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus Page 92 to 172\u003cbr\u003e A Christmas Tree Page 173 to 186\u003cbr\u003e What Christmas is as we Grow Older Page 187 to 190\u003cbr\u003e The Poor Relation's Story Page 191 to 200\u003cbr\u003e The Child's Story Page 201 to 204\u003cbr\u003e The Schoolboy's Story Page 205 to 213 Nobody's Story Page 215 to 218 \u003cbr\u003eA CHRISTMAS CAROL\u003cbr\u003e by Charles Dickens \u003cbr\u003eI have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.\u003cbr\u003e Their faithful Friend and Servant,\u003cbr\u003e C. D. \u003cbr\u003eDecember, 1843.\u003cbr\u003e Stave 1: Marley's Ghost \u003cbr\u003eMarley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon `Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.\u003cbr\u003e Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. \u003cbr\u003eMind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors\u003cbr\u003e is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands\u003cbr\u003e shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eScrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged\u003cbr\u003e gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eScrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the\u003cbr\u003e same to him.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eOh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue;\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eand spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eExternal heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often `came down' handsomely, and Scrooge never did.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eNobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, `My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?' No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, `No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!'\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eTO BE CONTINUED... Buy now and enjoy all the stories!","brand":"S.H.W.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47068745138416,"sku":"2940013318380","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013318380_p0.jpg?v=1763579660","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013318380","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}