Jacob Marley is a fictional character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, having been the business partner of the miser Ebenezer Scrooge. A 'good man of business', at the time of the story's setting on Christmas Eve, he has been dead for seven years that night and Marley's ghost visits Scrooge at the beginning of the story to warn him that he will be visited by three other Spirits who will offer him a chance of redemption.