Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp. Judith Dean

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      CHARLES DICKENS

      A Christmas Carol

      A CHRISTMAS CAROL

      Ebenezer Scrooge is a cross, miserable, mean old man. When his nephew visits him on Christmas Eve to wish him a merry Christmas, Scrooge is not at all pleased. ‘Bah! Humbug!’ he says. ‘Christmas is humbug! Everyone who goes around saying “Merry Christmas” should have his tongue cut out. Yes, he should!’

      Oh yes, Scrooge is a hard, mean man. His clerk, Bob Cratchit, gets only fifteen shillings a week, and has to work in a cold little office, with a fire too small to warm even his toes.

      But that Christmas Eve Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his long-dead partner, Jacob Marley. And after him come three more ghostly visitors … It is a long night, and a frightening night, and when Christmas Day finally arrives, Scrooge is a very different man indeed.

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DPOxford University Press is a department of the University of OxfordIt furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide inOxford New YorkAuckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei TorontoWith offices inArgentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine VietnamOXFORD and OXFORD ENGLISH are registered trade marks of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countriesThis simplified edition © Oxford University Press 2008Database right Oxford University Press (maker)First published in Oxford Bookworms 19962 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1No unauthorized photocopyingAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the ELT Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address aboveYou must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirerAny websites referred to in this publication are in the public domain and their addresses are provided by Oxford University Press for information only. Oxford University Press disclaims any responsibility for the contentISBN 978 0 19 479113 7A complete recording of this Bookworms edition of A Christmas Carol is available on audio CD ISBN 978 0 19 479094 9Printed in Hong KongWord count (main text): 10,385 wordsFor more information on the Oxford Bookworms Library, visit www.oup.com/bookwormswww.oup.com/bookworms e-Book ISBN 978 0 19 478671 3e-Book first published 2012

      1

      Marley’s ghost

      It is important to remember that Jacob Marley was dead. Did Scrooge know that? Of course he did. Scrooge and Marley had been partners in London for many years, and excellent men of business they were, too. When Marley died, Scrooge continued with the business alone. Both names still stood above the office door: Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people who were new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. He did not care what name they called him. The only thing that mattered to him was the business, and making money.

      Oh! He was a hard, clever, mean old man, Scrooge was! There was nothing warm or open about him. He lived a secretive, lonely life, and took no interest in other people at all. The cold inside him made his eyes red, and his thin lips blue, and his voice high and cross. It put white frost on his old head, his eyebrows and his chin. The frost in his heart made the air around him cold, too. In the hottest days of summer his office was as cold as ice, and it was just as cold in winter.