What is the worst misery a soul can endure?

In a chilling inversion of the holiday spirit, an eccentric, melancholy gentleman's will establishes a shocking annual tradition: a magnificent Christmas Banquet hosted exclusively for the ten most miserable people that can be found in the city.

The guests, an "aristocracy of wretchedness", range from the hypochondriac to the misanthrope, each sharing their unique burden of grief and despair over the holiday feast.

Year after year, the only consistent attendee is Gervayse Hastings. By all outward appearances, Hastings is successful, kind, and untroubled. The other guests, despite their crushing woes, dismiss him, arguing he is not truly miserable enough to deserve a seat at their dismal table. Yet, with each passing year, Hastings grows more hollow and spectral.

Hawthorne's profound and unsettling tale, originally subtitled an Allegory of the Human Heart, dissects the true nature of suffering. It leads to the terrifying revelation that the deepest agony is not pain, but the complete absence of feeling a life so empty and cold that it can share in neither joy nor genuine sorrow.

Discover a Christmas story where the ghost is not a visitor, but the man at the head of the table.