Mr. Dickens and His Carol

"Charming, comic, and ultimately poignant...It's all heart, and I read it in a couple of ebullient, Christmassy gulps." —Anthony Doerr, #1 New York Times bestselling author of All The Light We Cannot SeeA debut novel with the wit of Shakespeare in Love and the evergreen charm of A Christmas CarolFor Charles Dickens, each Christmas has been better than the last. But when his newest book is an utter flop, his publishers offer an ultimatum: either he writes a Christmas book in a month, or they will call in his debts, and he could lose everything. Grudgingly, he accepts, but with relatives hounding him for loans, his wife planning an excessively lavish holiday party, and jealous critics moving in for the kill, he is hardly feeling the Christmas spirit. Frazzled and filled with self-doubt, Dickens seeks solace and inspiration in London itself, his great palace of thinking. And on one of his long walks, in a...