Dickensblog

New 'Chimes' audio drama

The Chimes -- Dickens's "lost" Christmas story, according to the publicity -- is getting a full-cast audio adaptation, starring Toby Jones. It can be pre-ordered here; there's no word yet on whether it will be available at Audible or other outlets. Here's the teaser trailer:

 

A virtual 'Chimes'

Tomorrow (Friday) at 5 p.m. GMT/12 p.m. Eastern, the Dickens Museum will host a Zoom performance of The Chimes by actor Dominic Gerrard. Gerrard and Lucinda Dickens Hawksley will take questions after the performance. Go here to learn more and to buy tickets!

Dickens's other Christmas tales

Happy Thanksgiving! In case you're looking for a little reading material for the break and you've already gotten in another Christmas Carol reading, Cemetery Gates Media has a new review of Dickens's other, lesser-known Christmas books. 

Happy New Year!

"Cheer up! Don't give way. A new heart for a New Year, always!''
-- The Chimes, Second Quarter

World premiere of 'The Chimes'

A new adaptation of "The Chimes," by John Hurley, opens tomorrow at Road Less Traveled Productions in Buffalo, New York. Information is here and here!

Happy New Year!

"So may the New year be a happy one to you, happy to many more whose happiness depends on you! So may each year be happier than the last, and not the meanest of our brethren or sisterhood debarred their rightful share in what our Creator formed for them to enjoy."

The Chimes

(H/T The Buzfuz)

One of those other Dickens Christmas stories

Thomas L. McDonald at God and the Machine takes a look at The Chimes, a Christmas book with "a much harder edge to it" than A Christmas Carol.

The power of 'The Chimes'

In Crisis magazine, Edward Mordrake argues convincingly that "There is perhaps no better tale to ring an old year out and a new year in than Charles Dickens’ goblin story, The Chimes," and that "This book rings out a tremendous moral for all who live surrounded by suffering." Read more here.

A New Year carol

Happy New Year! Here's an interesting piece from Anglophenia, about how The Chimes did for New Year's Day what A Christmas Carol did for Christmas.

Borrowed from Dickens

Joseph Bottum, author of what's probably my all-time favorite essay about Dickens, has written a delightful little Christmas tale in which he uses the names of many characters from Dickens's Christmas stories, such as Toby Veck (The Chimes), May Fielding (The Cricket on the Hearth), and Clemency Newcome (The Battle of Life). Bottum's Wise Guy is available on Amazon as a 99-cent e-book.