Jacob Marley

Jacob Marley is a fictional character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. Marley has been dead for seven years, and was a former business partner of the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, the novella's protagonist. On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by Marley's ghost, who wanders the Earth entwined by heavy chains and money boxes forged during a lifetime of greed and selfishness. Marley tells Scrooge that he has a single chance of redemption to avoid the same fate: he will be visited by three spirits, in the hope that he will mend his ways; otherwise, he will be cursed to carry much heavier chains of his own.