poor families

A miser learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors review his past and foretell his future.

John Harmon will inherit a fortune if he marries a girl whose personality has been affected by her wealth, and friends and events conspire to prove her true worth.

Maggie Johnson dreams of escaping New York's Bowery and her alcoholic family. After her younger brother dies she runs off with a bartender only to find herself abandoned when he finds someone else. Offers a stark image of urban American life at the end of the nineteenth century.

Through the intervention of four ghosts, Ebenezer Scrooge is shown the spirit of Christmas.

Includes an introduction, over eighty illustrations, and annotations that explain literary, autobiographical, and historical aspects of the text.

Features the tale of a pretty young girl driven to brutal excesses by poverty and loneliness, and includes five additional short stories by Stephen Crane.