Other editions of book The "Pears" Edition of Charles Dickens Christmas Books : The Chimes

This is the second in a series of five novels that Charles Dickens wrote for the Christmas season and is the immediate successor to A Christmas Carol. Filled with an array of comic characters, The Chimes tells the story of Toby Veck, a humble porter whose loses his faith in human nature at the hands of his presumed social superiors but regains it thanks to the spirits of the bells. The book was actually written while Dickens was living in Italy but remains a quintessentially English tale. Like its predecessor, it carries a heartfelt plea for charity and brotherhood and examines such distressing themes as suicide and infanticide as well as the question of whether the poor have any right to live at all. The book also continues its predecessor's vigorous satire on the social injustices of its day and is perhaps more explicit and confrontational in its approach. Contrary to his wish to be buried in Rochester Cathedral, Dickens was buried in Poets' Corner at Westminster Abbey. The inscription on his tomb reads, "He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world."

The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In is a short novel by Charles Dirkens and is the second book in his series of Christmas books. The Chimes is a story of about self-respect and the consequences of their choices. It may not be as popular as the first book, A Christmas Carol; it probably packs more of an emotional punch than either story. It is a tale that will--as the best of Dickensian melodrama does--grip you and wring your heart. One really gets the sense of what reading Dickens must have felt like to his contemporaries.The book includes original illustrations, an active/navigable table of contents, a Free audiobook link to download (which can be downloaded using a PC/Mac) at the end of the book.

The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In is a short novel by Charles Dirkens and is the second book in his series of Christmas books. The Chimes is a story of about self-respect and the consequences of their choices. It may not be as popular as the first book, A Christmas Carol; it probably packs more of an emotional punch than either story. It is a tale that will--as the best of Dickensian melodrama does--grip you and wring your heart. One really gets the sense of what reading Dickens must have felt like to his contemporaries.The book includes original illustrations, an active/navigable table of contents, a Free audiobook link to download (which can be downloaded using a PC/Mac) at the end of the book.

The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In is a short novel by Charles Dirkens and is the second book in his series of Christmas books. The Chimes is a story of about self-respect and the consequences of their choices. It may not be as popular as the first book, A Christmas Carol; it probably packs more of an emotional punch than either story. It is a tale that will--as the best of Dickensian melodrama does--grip you and wring your heart. One really gets the sense of what reading Dickens must have felt like to his contemporaries.The book includes original illustrations, an active/navigable table of contents, a Free audiobook link to download (which can be downloaded using a PC/Mac) at the end of the book.

The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In is a short novel by Charles Dirkens and is the second book in his series of Christmas books. The Chimes is a story of about self-respect and the consequences of their choices. It may not be as popular as the first book, A Christmas Carol; it probably packs more of an emotional punch than either story. It is a tale that will--as the best of Dickensian melodrama does--grip you and wring your heart. One really gets the sense of what reading Dickens must have felt like to his contemporaries.The book includes original illustrations, an active/navigable table of contents, a Free audiobook link to download (which can be downloaded using a PC/Mac) at the end of the book.

The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In is a short novel by Charles Dirkens and is the second book in his series of Christmas books. The Chimes is a story of about self-respect and the consequences of their choices. It may not be as popular as the first book, A Christmas Carol; it probably packs more of an emotional punch than either story. It is a tale that will--as the best of Dickensian melodrama does--grip you and wring your heart. One really gets the sense of what reading Dickens must have felt like to his contemporaries.The book includes original illustrations, an active/navigable table of contents, a Free audiobook link to download (which can be downloaded using a PC/Mac) at the end of the book.

The Chimes, the full name is The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In is a story written by a classic of the English literature Charles Dickens. The Chimes is the second in his Christmas Books, the collection of particular moral messages. One New Year's Eve, the main character of the story, 60-year-old casual messenger Trotty Veck is filled with gloom because of the reports of crimes and immorality of the working class in the newspapers. Trotty wonders whether the workers are wicked by nature or poverty and oppression made them like that...

One New Year's Eve, Trotty, a poor elderly "ticket-porter" or casual messenger, is filled with gloom at the reports of crime and immorality in the newspapers, and wonders whether the working classes are simply wicked by nature. His daughter Meg and her long-time fiancé Richard arrive and announce their decision to marry next day. Trotty hides his misgivings, but their happiness is dispelled by an encounter with the pompous Alderman Cute, plus a political economist and a young gentleman with a nostalgia, all of whom make Trotty, Meg and Richard feel they hardly have a right to exist, let alone marry.Trotty carries a note for Cute to Sir Joseph Bowley MP, who dispenses charity to the poor in the manner of a paternal dictator. Bowley is ostentatiously settling his debts to ensure a clean start to the new year, and berates Trotty because he owes a few shillings to his local shop which he cannot pay off. Returning home, convinced that he and his fellow poor are naturally ungrateful and have no place in society, Trotty encounters Will Fern, a poor countryman, and his orphaned niece, Lilian. Fern has been accused of vagrancy and wants to visit Cute to set matters straight, but from a conversation overheard at Bowley's house, Trotty is able to warn him that Cute plans to have him arrested and imprisoned. He takes the pair home with him and he and Meg share their meagre food and poor lodging with the visitors. Meg tries to hide her distress, but it seems she has been dissuaded from marrying Richard by her encounter with Cute and the others.

'but it almost goes against the grain with me to read a paper now. It frightens me almost. I don't know what we poor people are coming to. Lord send we may be coming to something better in the New Year nigh upon us!''Why, father, father!' said a pleasant voice, hard by.But Toby, not hearing it, continued to trot backwards and forwards: musing as he went, and talking to himself.'It seems as if we can't go right, or do right, or be righted,' said Toby. 'I hadn't much schooling, myself, when I was young; and I can't make out whether we have any business on the face of the earth, or not. Sometimes I think we must have--a little; and sometimes I think we must be intruding. I get so puzzled sometimes that I am not even able to make up my mind whether there is any good at all in us, or whether we are born bad. We seem to be dreadful things; we seem to give a deal of trouble; we are always being complained of and guarded against. One way or other,