Extract: MARLEY'S GHOST. Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot-say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance-literally to astonish his son's weak mind. Charles John Huffam Dickens, n Landport, pr s de Portsmouth, dans le Hampshire, le 7 f vrier 1812 et mort Gad's Hill Place, Higham, Kent, le 9 juin 1870 ( 58 ans), est consid r comme le plus grand romancier de l' poque victorienne. D s ses premiers crits, il est devenu immens ment c l bre, sa popularit ne cessant de cro tre au fil de ses publications. L'exp rience marquante de son enfance, que certains consid rent comme la clef de son g nie, a t , peu avant l'incarc ration de son p re pour dettes la Marshalsea, son embauche douze ans chez Warren o il a coll des tiquettes sur des pots de cirage pendant plus d'une ann e. Bien qu'il soit retourn presque trois ans l' cole, son ducation est rest e sommaire et sa grande culture est essentiellement due ses efforts personnels. Il a fond et publi plusieurs hebdomadaires, compos quinze romans majeurs, cinq livres de moindre envergure (novellas en anglais), des centaines de nouvelles et d'articles portant sur des sujets litt raires ou de soci t . Sa passion pour le th tre l'a pouss crire et mettre en sc ne des pi ces, jouer la com die et faire des lectures publiques de ses oeuvres qui, lors de tourn es souvent harassantes, sont vite devenues extr mement populaires en Grande-Bretagne et aux tats-Unis. Charles Dickens a t un infatigable d fenseur du droit des enfants, de l' ducation pour tous, de la condition f minine et de nombreuses autres causes, dont celle des prostitu es.