'Marley was dead to begin with.' So begins one of the best-loved and famous Christmas stories that has been filmed, inspired musicals, and plays, and still entertains with a timeless story of transformation from meanness to generosity and kindness. A sensational success when it was published, 'A Christmas Caro'l was written by Charles Dickens. Dickens wrote tirelessly to expose the terrible wrongs inflicted on children, and workers in Victorian times by miserable miserly bosses and people in co ...