Dickens gave his first public reading of A Christmas Carol in 1853 and continued to do so until the year of his death in 1870. A version of the popular dramatic reading, with an illustration by S. Eytinge, Jr., was first published in 1868 by Ticknor and Fields in Boston. According to the British Library, the publication may have come from one of his specially prepared manuscripts, or it may “have been transcribed on behalf of the publishing firm.”

The demon of this story carries out an exquisite torture of his victim. At the end, we do discover the victim’s fate, though I wondered what became of the demon. Time travel? I haven’t heard Gaiman talk of this story, but I like to think of it in that way because of the opening and closing quotes.