Every idiot who goes around with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding . Charles Dickens' tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, who is haunted by three spirits and learns the true meaning of Christmas has had, along with Dickens' other Christmas writings, a lasting and significant influence upon our ideas about the season as a time for celebration, charity and memory. The Penguin English Library — 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.