O Christmas Three

by Charles Dickens

[MurderByDeath]

4 short stories from three of classic literature's rock stars, all themed for Christmas.   O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi - I had just read this in a different collection and as I said there, it's excellent.  Short and ironic but absolutely encapsulating the spirit of Christmas.   Tolstoy's Where Love is, There God is Also - This is purely a homily to the New Testament. If the reader is not Christian, I think it would be hard to look past the pure sermonising to the greater monistic message, but it is a beautiful story with a timeless message of charity.   Dickens' The Seven Poor Travellers - This story restored my faith in Charles Dickens after last year's attempt at A Christmas Tree.  I love this story; I thought it was amazing, and another story about what Christmas should mean.  It was moving and humorous and brilliant.   Dickens' What Christmas is As We Grow Older - And I'm back again to thinking Dickens is florid and impossible.  It seems the shorter the story the more impenetrable he makes it; I could not get through this one for the excess of verbosity with which it was written.   Overall a worthy collection, but it would have been brilliant if they'd kept it to the first three stories, all of which I'll read again and again.