The Cricket on the Hearth

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: George Cole

There is the warmest of Christmas fires in this hearth. It was reportedly written in a matter of weeks as part of Dickens' journalistic output, to catch the Christmas deadline.

Unlike his other seasonal stories, this is not a supernatural tale but one of the perfect domestic scene with which Dickens was so obsessed throughout his writing. It is all here: the warmth of home, the loving little woman, the children, the food and the laughter. All the things that go to make an idealised Christmas are rolled into one very warming story.

The book was a huge commercial success and the best selling of all five of the Christmas books. At the outset its sales doubled that of both The Chimes and A Christmas Carol. William Makepiece Thackeray described it as "illuminated with extra gas, crammed with extra bonbons, French plums and sweetness"....

Public Domain (P)2007 Silksoundbooks Limited

Delightful

James Cosmo (Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch) gives a delightful reading of this minor Christmas classic. It’s minor only because it’s not A Christmas Carol. Dickens once again points a gentle domestic comedy toward irreversible tragedy, and then pulls back at the last minute. Everyone dances in the end.