After beating up a little boy on Christmas Eve – as you do – Gabriel Grub, a grumpy and mean-spirited gravedigger, goes to dig a grave in the churchyard. His work is interrupted when goblins come by to show him what a nasty and spiteful fellow he is.
The Goblins Who Stole a Sexton is a quick and festive read which appeared in Charles Dickens’ first novel, The Pickwick Papers, Britain’s first publishing phenomenon. It’s a haunting and imaginative short story and readers familiar with Dickens will find many parallels to A Christmas Carol.


Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was an English author, social critic, and philanthropist. Much of his writing first appeared in small instalments in magazines and was widely popular. Among his most famous novels are Oliver Twist (1839), David Copperfield (1850), and Great Expectations (1861).