From our family to yours this holiday season comes Charles Dicken''s classic A Christmas Carol. Taken from the first edition, this version includes the original illustrations by John Leech.

In 1843, Charles Dickens was hard at work on his novel "Martin Chuzzlewit" when, in October, he decided to write a work for the holiday season. A Christmas Carol was the result, and it became the most popular book of the 1843 holiday season, and had eight stage adaptations in production by February. Today, it remains as popular as it was 150 years ago.

At the time he wrote it, Dickens was involved in The Ragged School movement, which provided free education to the children of London''s slums, and in A Christmas Carol, Dickens reminds us of the importance of taking notice of the lives around us: " ''It is required of every man,'' the ghost returned, ''that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death.'' "

This sentiment is as true today as it was then, that we honor the spirit of Christmas in our hearts and try to keep it all year long so that, like Scrooge, we become

"... as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world."

To read A Christmas Carol on your Symbian-based phone, you must have an ebook reader installed. We suggest Mobipocket Reader, which you can download for free from their web site. Then use your desktop software to install A Christmas Carol to your phone, and start Mobipocket Reader. It''s that easy!