The Ghost of Dickens Past

Getting beyond our own needs," a close friend tells Charles Dickens, "takes thought and effort and, above all, an unselfish heart." The timely advice is given as the author struggles to write ? only for profit. Unfortunately, his desire for financial security only fuels his own fears and self-pity. When his soul-searching leads him into peril, he receives unexpected help from a young girl. Hauntingly, her life mirrors his own childhood. Though the strange events she reveals to Dickens, she reawakens in him a desire to refocus his priorities. But he runs into a wall built upon his own painful memories of a childhood marred by debtors prison. He wants desperately to solve the phlight of child labor but doesn?t know how. Unless he can discover the healing power of a simple act of charity, his dream of truly making a difference is as dead as a doornail.