W. H. Wills

The stories in this book were originally published in 1853 as a special Christmas edition of Dickens's magazine, Household Words, the second such.

Dickens again asked his contributors to provide him with stories that exemplified the spirit of Christmas, rather than being specifically set at Chritmastime. So, the stories and poems are about family ties, affection, overcoming adversity, and murder and ghosts!

There are some good tales here, notably The Old Lady's Story by Eliza Lynn Linton and show more The Squire's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell, but overall this collection is not quite as strong as the first volume, A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire. Nonetheless, a nice Yuletide read. show less