‘Marley’ brings ghost to life

“Marley was dead: to begin with.” Thus starts one of our most beloved Christmas stories, Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” But what of Marley’s life and his partnership with Ebenezer Scrooge? And what about Scrooge’s formative years? How did the two meet?

In Dickens’ classic their shared scene is in Scrooge’s bedroom, Marley’s ghost coming through the door, dragging a chain made “of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.” This is Marley’s legacy, the chain he forged in life: “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free-wil...