Customer Reviews

A Christmas Carol, The Chimes & The Cricket on the Hearth (Barnes & Noble Classics)

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This book is one of the Barnes & Noble Classics, reissues of classic books with added notes and in nice trade paperback editions. Most everyone will be familiar with the first story in the book - A Christmas Carol. We have seen theater productions, movies, and other books. We know who Scrooge is, what Tiny Tim says, and what the four ghosts do with Scrooge. We certainly know the expression Bah! Humbug! A Christmas Carol is indeed a classic and would always deserve five stars by itself.

However, the other two stories are not in the same league. Dickens wrote them in the years following the publication of A Christmas Carol because it had been a success and he wanted to see if more profits could be obtained. He made some money but the last two stories have not held up nearly as well as A Christmas Carol over the years.

The Chimes is a story of a messenger named Toby Veck and his efforts to eke out a meager existence and to help his daughter find happiness. Toby is fascinated by the sound of the bells in the bell tower close to where he stations himself each day hoping to find paying customers. In the story he is drawn one night up into the tower itself where he meets phantoms who show him what the future may hold if he continues on his present path. These phantoms are nothing like the ghosts in A Christmas Carol. Toby's primary belief in life is that the poorer people like him deserve their station in life. The phantoms get his attention long enough so that possible events cause him to change his belief and possibly give his family a chance at a better life. The story is fairly dense and is written in Dickens' usual style.

The Cricket on the Hearth is the third story and once again expresses Dickens' point of view that needy people can be and should be helped to lead good, productive lives. The tale takes place around the turning of the New Year. This one does not involve spirits but is more like some of Dickens' popular novels. A hardworking family just getting by finds their situation turning worse. Tensions grow between the husband and wife. A mystery guest appears, and everything works out for the best in the end.

If you like Dickens, you will enjoy this book. I also recommend that you try Les Standiford's new book The Man Who Invented Christmas. It will give you the history of the development of Dickens' Christmas stories and will help you to understand what the atmosphere was like in England when the stories were written in the mid-19th century

A Christmas Carol
The book I read was a Christmas Carol I love this book. The reason I love this book is because it actually teaches you something about life. Scrooge is an old man who dose not like celebrating Christmas, he's whole family enjoys and they all just stay together and just tell good storied about what good thing happened thought out the whole year. Scrooge doesn't do that like that the whole time he just stays to work. To make words short his nephew who is my favorite character Tint Tim try to change his uncle to like Christmas and try's to change uncle scrooge to like Christmas again there is a really big reason that uncle scrooge dose not like Christmas. The reason my favorite character is Tiny Tim is because try's to show everybody not just his uncle but almost the whole town everything good about life. I really recommend this book to anybody because it's just fun and like a soon as you start to read it you just cant stop reading it you just have to keep on going on. What I dislike bout this book is that they made Tim feel bad well the way his uncle ignored him and his entire family well I know they where poor and everything but it was not for that much.

This volume collects three of Dickens' holiday tales that came out in succession. The Chimes and The Cricket on The Hearth were forgettable, but I must add that the Cricket on The Hearth was the stronger of the two. A Christmas Carol alone was worth the price of the book. All of the adaptions I have seen in film of Christmas Carol did not do justice to the original. This was one of the most moving things I have read about Christmas and the spirit of the holiday.

I snuggle up with this book every Christmas by the tree. However, it is a story to be enjoyed all year round. A pity we all have to wait till December in order to feel ducky about celebrating the Christian faith. A paragraph of Dickens a day will keep the devil away.