The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home

The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home is a novella by Charles Dickens, published by Bradbury and Evans and released December 20, 1845, with illustrations by Daniel Maclise, John Leech, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, and Edwin Henry Landseer. Dickens began writing the book around October 17, 1845, and finished it by December 1. Like all of Dickens' 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. It is the third of Dickens' five Christmas books, preceded by A Christmas Carol (1843) and The Chimes (1844), and followed by The Battle of Life (1846) and The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (1848).

The Chimes

The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, commonly referred to as The Chimes, is a novella written by Charles Dickens and first published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol. It is the second in his series of "Christmas Books," five novellas with strong social and moral messages that he published during the 1840s. In addition to A Christmas Carol and The Chimes, the Christmas Books include The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (1848).

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. A Christmas Carol recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.

    Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol during a period when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols, and newer customs such as Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth and by the Christmas stories of other authors, including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, and was inspired following a visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, one of several establishments for London's street children. The treatment of the poor and the ability of a selfish man to redeem himself by transforming into a more sympathetic character are the key themes of the story. There is discussion among academics as to whether this is a fully secular story, or if it is a Christian allegory.

The Pickwick Papers

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (also known as The Pickwick Papers) was Charles Dickens’ first and personal favorite novel. He was asked to contribute to the project as an up-and-coming writer following the success of Sketches by Boz, published in 1836 (most of Dickens’ novels were issued in shilling installments before being published as complete volumes). Dickens (still writing under the pseudonym of Boz) increasingly took over the unsuccessful monthly publication after the original illustrator Robert Seymour had committed suicide. With the introduction of Sam Weller in Chapter 10, the book became the first real publishing phenomenon with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books, and other merchandise. After the publication, the widow of Robert Seymour claimed the idea for the novel was originally her husband’s; however, in his preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens strenuously denied any specific input, writing “Mr Seymour never originated or suggested an incident, a phrase, or a word, to be found in the book.”

Bleak House

Bleak House is one of Charles Dickens’ major novels, first published as a serial between March 1852-September 1853. The novel has many characters and several sub-plots, and the story is told partly by the novel’s heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator. At the center of Bleak House is the long-running legal case, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, which came about because someone wrote several conflicting wills. This legal case is used by Dickens to satirize the English judicial system, and he makes use of his earlier experiences as a law clerk and as a litigant seeking to enforce copyright on his earlier books.

   Although the legal profession criticized Dickens’ satire as exaggerated, this novel helped support a judicial reform movement, culminating in the enactment of legal reform in the 1870s.

     There is some debate among scholars as to when Bleak House is set. The English legal historian Sir William Holdsworth sets the action in 1827; however, reference to preparation for the building of a railroad in Chapter LV suggests the 1830s.

Nicholas Nickleby

Nicholas Nickleby; or, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is a novel by Charles Dickens. Originally published as a serial from 1838-1839, it was Dickens’ third novel. The novel centers on the life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, a young man who must support his mother and sister after his father dies.

  With Nicholas Nickleby, Dickens returned to his favorite publishers and to the format considered so successful with The Pickwick Papers. The story first appeared in monthly parts, after which it was issued in one volume. The style is considered to be episodic and humorous, though the second half of the novel becomes more serious and tightly plotted. Dickens began writing Nicholas Nickleby while still working on Oliver Twist and while the mood is considerably lighter, his depiction of the Yorkshire school run by Wackford Squeers is as moving and influential as those of the workhouse and criminal underclass in Oliver Twist.

    Nicholas Nickleby marks a new development in a further sense as it is the first of Dickens’ romances. When it was published, the book was an immediate and complete success and established Dickens’ lasting reputation.

    The cruelty of a real Yorkshire schoolmaster named William Shaw became the basis for Dickens’ brutal character of Wackford Squeers. Dickens visited his school and based the school section of Nicholas Nickleby on his visit.

David Copperfield

David Copperfield is the eighth novel by Charles Dickens. The novel’s full title is The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account). It was first published as a serial in 1849-1850 and as a book in 1850. Many elements of the novel follow events in Dickens’ own life, and it is often considered as his veiled autobiography. It was Dickens’ favorite among his own novels. In the preface to the 1867 edition, Dickens wrote, “like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite [sic] child. And his name is David Copperfield.”

A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution, and many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same period.

    “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” can arguably be considered the most famous opening sentence of any novel.

Oliver Twist

Oliver Twist, or The Parish Boy’s Progress, is the second novel by Charles Dickens, and was first published as a serial 1837-1839. The story is of the orphan Oliver Twist, who starts his life in a workhouse and is then sold into apprenticeship with an undertaker. He escapes from there and travels to London, where he meets the Artful Dodger, a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin.

    Oliver Twist is notable for its unromantic portrayal by Dickens of criminals and their sordid lives, as well as for exposing the cruel treatment of the many orphans in London in the mid-Nineteenth Century. The alternate title, The Parish Boy’s Progress, alludes to Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, as well as the Eighteenth Century caricature series by William Hogarth, A Rake’s Progress and A Harlot’s Progress.

Great Expectations

Simon & Schuster

Great Expectations is the thirteenth novel by Charles Dickens and his penultimate completed novel; a bildungsroman novel depicting the personal growth and personal development of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Dickens’ second novel, after David Copperfield, fully narrated in first person. The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens’ weekly periodical, All the Year Round, from December 1, 1860, to August 1861. In October 1861 Chapman & Hall published the novel in three volumes.
     The novel is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-Nineteenth Century and contains some of Dickens’ most memorable scenes, including the opening in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch. Great Expectations is full of extreme imagery—poverty, prison ships, chains, and fights to the death—and has a colorful cast of characters who have indubitably entered popular culture: These include the eccentric Miss Havisham, the beautiful but cold Estella, and Joe, the unsophisticated and kind blacksmith. Dickens’ themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. Great Expectations (popular with readers and literary critics) boasts many translations into various languages and adaptations into various media.