The Battle of Life: A Love Story is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in 1846. It is the fourth of his five “Christmas Books”. The setting is an English village that stands on the site of a historic battle. Some characters refer to the battle as a metaphor for the struggles of life, hence the title. Battle is the only one of the five Christmas Books that has no supernatural or explicitly religious elements. The story bears some resemblance to The Cricket on the Hearth in two aspects: it has a non-urban setting and it is resolved with a romantic twist. It is even less of a social novel than is Cricket. As is typical with Dickens, the ending is a happy one. (Wikipedia)
By Charles Dickens