The English North Yorkshire town of Malton seems a likely place to figure in a Charles Dickens tale and this year it does. When residents of the old Roman town learned that a rare specially bound and signed copy of A Christmas Carol with deep Malton ties was coming up for auction in New York City, they began a campaign to bring the book home to Malton.

The former journalist and broadcaster Selina Scott, who lives in the area, helped the community to raise £27,280 to buy the copy, which was commissioned by the author for the family of his friend and lawyer Charles Smithson. It’s thought that Dickens wrote much of A Christmas Carol while visiting Malton and that he based some of the book’s locations on buildings in the old market town, including Ebenezer Scrooge’s counting house.