Christmas Literary Fiction

Read by Juliet Stevenson and Simon Callow, A Literary Christmas is a seasonal anthology that collects together poems, short stories, and prose extracts by some of the greatest poets and writers in the English language. Like Charles Dickens’ ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, they are representative of times old and new - from John Donne’s Elizabethan hymn over the baby Jesus to Rudyard Kipling’s "Christmas in India", from Thomas Tusser counting the cost of a Tudor feast to Laurie Lee’s "Cider with Rosie".

Years ago Lady Louisa Windham acted rashly on a dare from her brother, and that indiscretion is about to come to light. She knows her reputation will never survive exposure. Just as she's nearly overwhelmed by her dilemma, Sir Joseph Carrington offers himself to her as a solution. But Sir Joseph has secrets as well, and as he and Louisa become entangled with each other, their deceptions begin to close in on them both.

Lee Smith delivers the heartwarming tale of three generations of women who record their lives in Christmas letters to the family.

Lady Sophie Windham has maneuvered a few days to herself at the ducal mansion in London before she must join her family for Christmas in Kent. Suddenly trapped by a London snowstorm, she finds herself with an abandoned baby and only the assistance of a kind, handsome stranger standing between her and complete disaster.

A wealthy and depressed man (thanks to the economy, he's not quite rich enough to expand his cache of paintings by Vincent Van Guy, the famed Dutch realist) bound for Christmas in the tropics is abruptly summoned home to North Dakota to visit an ailing aunt. He arrives just in time to be trapped there by a blizzard. The electricity goes out, and when it does, figures from his childhood appear, and historical figures too, for a festive candlelit holiday.

Deep in the southernmost part of Alabama, along the banks of a lazy winding river, lies the sleepy little community known as Lost River, a place that time itself seems to have forgotten. After a startling diagnosis from his doctor, Oswald T. Campbell leaves behind the cold and damp of the oncoming Chicago winter to spend what he believes will be his last Christmas in the warm and welcoming town of Lost River. There he meets the postman who delivers mail by boat, the store owner who nurses a broken heart, the ladies of the Mystic Order of the Royal Polka Dots Secret Society.

The holiday film A Christmas Story, first released in 1983, has become a bona fide Christmas perennial, gaining in stature and fame with each succeeding year. Its affectionate, wacky, and wryly realistic portrayal of an American family's typical Christmas joys and travails in small-town Depression-era Indiana has entered our imagination and our hearts with a force equal to It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street.

Saira Wright is a prominent Black romance author who has been signed to the most prestigious publisher of African American works, Brownstone Literature. Her career has been successful for the past five years. However, she’s in a slump, and so are her sales and reviews. The romance she has been known for seems to be zapped out of her stories and her love life. Eager to get Saira back on top of the charts, her publisher has given her an ultimatum—write a chart-topping holiday romance or be dropped from the publishing house. There’s only one problem: Saira strongly opposes penning holiday books.

Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit, and Ebenezer Scrooge come to marvelous life in Patrick Stewart's critically-acclaimed solo interpretation of A Christmas Carol. The star of X-Men and The Royal Shakespeare Company, Stewart has performed his one-man stage production of this holiday classic to sell-out audiences.

Trapped by a blizzard days before Christmas—with my ex and a secret that could bury us both. Five years ago, I walked away from Rives, convinced we were better apart. Now, we’re stranded in a tiny Winter Wonderland, and there’s no walking away this time. She’s still the same firecracker—wild, unpredictable, and impossible to ignore. And as much as I try to keep my distance, the storm outside is nothing compared to the one brewing between us. I’m not the man I was, and she’s not the woman I left behind. Being stuck together in a cozy lodge over Christmas is stirring up more ...

In 1860 the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow family celebrated Christmas at Craigie House, their home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The publication of Longfellow's classic Revolutionary War poem, "Paul Revere's Ride", was less than a month hence, and the country's grave political unrest weighed heavily on his mind. Yet with his beloved wife, Fanny, and their five adored children at his side, the delights of the season prevailed.

In Holiday Corner, Vermont, with snowflakes dancing through the frosty December air, excited residents are placing the finishing touches on their annual Snowman Festival. This year, the festive holiday spirit is shattered when the town’s art gallery owner is found murdered two days before the festival is to begin. The man’s frozen body is discovered hidden beneath a carefully crafted snowman which has an uncanny resemblance to the deceased. As word spreads through the small town, twin sisters, Alexa and Aria, become the unwitting suspects. Several eyewitnesses claim they saw two figures...

Ruth Raber, an elderly Old Order Amish woman, has led a lonely life. She never married, never sang with a boy at one of her community's gatherings, and ruined the only relationship she could've had. And worst of all, she doesn't understand why any of that happened. Or does she? Every year around Christmas, a series of memories haunt her, and this Christmas is no different. When the nearby townspeople and the Amish and Mennonites in the area gather at Christmas Eve and invite Ruth, not only will she be challenged by her memories, she'll be challenged by a lesson from her mother, now passed ...

In An Irish Country Christmas, the third book in Patrick Taylor's Irish Country Books, Barry Laverty, M.B., is looking forward to his first Christmas in the cozy village of Ballybucklebo, at least until he learns that his sweetheart, Patricia, might not be coming home for the holidays. That unhappy prospect dampens his spirits somewhat, but Barry has little time to dwell on his romantic disappointments. Christmas may be drawing nigh, but there is little peace to be found on earth, especially for a young doctor plying his trade in the emerald hills and glens of rural Ireland.

Just weeks before Christmas, severe wintry weather damages the church hall hosting the Christmas Boutique - an annual sale of handcrafted gifts and baked goods that supports the county food pantry. Determined to save the fundraiser, Sylvia Bergstrom Compson offers to hold the event at Elm Creek Manor, her ancestral family estate and summertime home to Elm Creek Quilt Camp.

Evie and Thomas experience a very different war. Frustrated by life as a privileged young lady, Evie longs to play a greater part in the conflict - but how? - and as Thomas struggles with the unimaginable realities of war, he also faces personal battles back home, where War Office regulations on press reporting cause trouble at his father's newspaper business. Through their letters Evie and Thomas share their greatest hopes and fears - and grow ever fonder from afar. Can love flourish amid the horror of the First World War, or will fate intervene?

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects more than 50 of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories - many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant.

The New York Times best-selling author of The Christmas Box returns with a holiday novel of hope, love, and redemption: "That's what I wanted to share with you, my dear listeners, this Christmas - a holiday tale to warm your season, your homes, and your hearts."

Throughout her childhood, Carlisle Martin got to see her father, Robert, for only a few precious weeks a year when she visited the brownstone apartment in Greenwich Village he shared with his partner, James. Brilliant but troubled, James gave Carlisle an education in all that he held dear in life—literature, music, and, most of all, dance.

Sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge has an emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim. A Christmas Carol has never been out of print and has been adapted to film, opera, and other media.