Candida is the wife of a famous clergyman, the Reverend James Mavor Morell. Morell is a Christian Socialist, popular in the Church of England, but Candida is responsible for much of his success.

On Christmas Eve, an old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the spirit of his former partner, Jacob Marley. The deceased partner was in his lifetime as mean and miserly as Scrooge is now and he warns him to change his ways or face the consequences in the afterlife. Scrooge is visited by three spirits, representing his past, present and future, and, after seeing what they have to show him, must make a determination of how he will continue to live his life.

An adaptation of Thomas Wolfe's literary classic, telling of the struggles of a young writer determined to be a success in New York's literary world of the 1920s, his married lover, and the brilliant editor who sees him as a blossoming genius. The story parallels the life of Wolfe himself and his affair with stage designer Aline Bernstein.