Although the book is only about 100 pages in length, its compact plot structure and wonderful narrative velocity are so perfectly contrived as to make this novella an icon in world literature. Once the story begins, there is no getting off this mad dash around the fog beclouded city of gloomy London.

The story was written in 1843 in the wake of a series of "poor laws" directed at changes in the British welfare system. Dickens tried to alert his readers to the plight of those persons who had been displaced and driven into poverty as a result of the rapid changes taking place during the early years of the Industrial Revolution.

In A Christmas Carol Dickens points out that the wealthy have a greater obligation to the poor than to merely pay their taxes and go on about their lives. But the greatest thing about the story is the powerful spirit of Christmas, and the healing virtue of believing in something outside of one's self.