The most lasting Christmas fiction tends to use Christmas as a setting not as the main subject and to draw from the warmth and sensory onslaught of the holidays and on friends and families gathering, not on the specific religious origins of the holiday. Yet religious themes persist in Christmas fiction right up to the present day, even when the stories take place in fantasy worlds, such as in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter stories and C. S. Lewis’ Narnia. This chapter is not comprehensive in its coverage but instead focuses on those works that seem to have had the greatest cultural impact, including those of Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Hans Christian Andersen, and Louisa May Alcott.
