The fifth and last of Dickens's Christmas novellas; Redlaw is a teacher of chemistry who often broods over wrongs done him and grief from his past.
He is haunted by a spirit, a phantom twin and "an awful likeness of himself" This spectre appears and proposes to Redlaw that he can allow him to "forget the sorrow, wrong, and trouble you have known...to cancel their remembrance..." Redlaw agrees.
As a consequence of the ghost's intervention, Redlaw is without memories of the painful incidents from his past. He experiences a universal anger that he cannot explain. His bitterness spreads to all around him, and as he perceives the horror he is causing and beseeches the ghost for deliverance.
This Christmas tale by Dickens is more about the spirit of the holidays than about the holidays themselves, harking back to the first in the series, A Christmas Carol.
