# Jacob Marley

jacob marley is a fictional character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, having been the business partner of the miser Ebenezer Scrooge. A 'good man of business', at the time of the story's setting on Christmas Eve he has been dead for seven years that night and Marley's ghost visits Scrooge at the beginning of the story to warn him that he will be visited by three other Spirits who will offer him a chance of redemption. == Importance to the story == By early 1843 Dickens had been affected by the treatment of the poor, and in particular the treatment of the children of the poor after witnessing children working in appalling conditions in a tin mine and following a visit to a ragged school.