Christmas Cricket

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English writer and social critic. He is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognized him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read, performed, and adapted today.

You can travel back through time to the Christmas season during the Victorian era with Charles Dickens’ cast of characters in the Charles Dickens Complete Christmas Collection. It includes A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, and Dickens' original biography The Life of Dickens.

The Cricket on the Heart is a novella by Charles Dickens, published by Bradbury and Evans, and released 20 December 1845. Dickens began writing the book in October 1845 and finished it by December. Like all of Dickens’s Christmas books, it was published in book form, not as a serial. Dickens described the novel as “quiet and domestic innocent and pretty.” It is subdivided into chapters called “Chirps”, similar to the “Quarters” of The Chimes or the “Staves” of A Christmas Carol.

Oliver, the wise old owl, narrates this delightful holiday story and takes the listener to the bears' den, the birds' dwelling, the squirrels' tree, and the cougars' cave as each family rehearses for the annual Christmas song contest. Who will win? Christmas time is upon us, and all the animals in the North Woods are hurrying and scurrying getting ready for this festive holiday. You see, they celebrate Christmas, too. Perhaps not the same way you do, but take it from me, they celebrate.

Charles Dickens is known not only for his novels, but also for his short stories, particularly "A Christmas Carol." In the latter genre, interestingly, these stories had a powerful commercial impulse, for they were serialized in magazines at the Christmas season.