How fitting it is on the 200th anniversary of the United Kingdom's most prolific, adored, and influential author, Charles Dickens, that there would be a story such as Eben Kruge to take us into the life of Dickens, when he is but thirty years old, and to experience with him what triggered his imagination to write the most beloved Christmas story of all time, A Christmas Carol. In Eben Kruge, the author, Richard Barlow Adams, weaves together well-known and little known facts about Dickens, including the secret he took to his grave, which led to his frenzied writing of the most famous of all Christmas fables.