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", coming after The Cricket on the Hearth and followed by The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. The setting is an English village that stands on the site of an historic battle. Some characters refer to the battle as a metaphor for the struggles of life, hence the title. The only one of the five Christmas Books that has no supernatural or explicitly religious elements, it focuses on Grace and Marion, two sisters who are driven apart only to be reunited once more. As is typical with Dickens, the ending is a happy one.