Book excerpt: Enchanting, tragic, and hilarious fairy tales for adults and children grace these pages. An initial glance might lead you to assume that these are satirical versions of classic Christmas ghost stories. However, beneath the humorous stories involving ghosts, repentant sinners, miracles, and good peasants who find well-deserved happiness, lies a psychological undercurrent that sharpens the sense of intrigue and plot movement. Often this is aided by the unrelenting social exposure of the authors who always understood how intangible the “bourgeois paradise” truly was. Even today, idyllic dreams of tolerance, equality, and the triumph of justice have failed to materialize. Perhaps that is why people continue to read these classic stories while the snow falls outside and the lights glow on the Christmas tree. Contents: Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol The Chimes G.K. Chesterton A Christmas Carol L.M. Montgomery The Red Room A Christmas Mistake A Christmas Inspiration The Josephs' Christmas Aunt Cyrilla's Christmas Basket The Osbornes' Christmas Bertie's New Year Ida's New Year Cake The Christmas Surprise at Enderly Road Clorinda's Gifts The Falsoms' Christmas Dinner The Unforgotten One Christmas at Red Butte Uncle Richard's New Year's Dinner L. Frank Baum A Kidnapped Santa Claus Little Bun Rabbit Mark Twain A Letter from Santa Claus Louisa May Alcott A Merry Christmas Leo Tolstoy A Russian Christmas Party Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Christmas Bells The Three Kings Nikolay Gogol Christmas Eve William Dean Howells Christmas Everyday The Pony Engine and the Pacific Express Joseph Rudyard Kipling Christmas in India Elizabeth Harrison Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe John Milton On the Morning of Christ's Nativity Hans Christian Andersen The Fir Tree Selma Lagerlof The Holy Night Hans Christian Andersen The Little Match Girl Clement Moore The Night Before Christmas Henry van Dyke The Other Wise Man Beatrix Potter The Tailor of Gloucester Anton Chehov Vanka