The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens (Illustrated)
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Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) gehört bis heute zu den beliebtesten Schriftstellern der Weltliteratur, in England ist er geradezu eine nationale Institution, und auch bei uns erfreuen sich seine Werke einer nicht nachlassenden Beliebtheit. Sein „Weihnachtslied in Prosa“ erscheint im deutschsprachigen Raum bis heute alljährlich in immer neuen Ausgaben und Adaptionen. Dickens’ lebensvoller Erzählstil, sein quirliger Humor, sein vehementer Humanismus und seine mitreißende Schaffensfreude brachten ihm den Beinamen „der Unnachahmliche“ ein.
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The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens (Illustrated) - Charles Dickens
The Complete Works of
CHARLES DICKENS
VOLUME 23 OF 64
The Cricket on the Hearth
Parts Edition
By Delphi Classics, 2015
Version 13
COPYRIGHT
‘The Cricket on the Hearth’
Charles Dickens: Parts Edition (in 64 parts)
First published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by Delphi Classics.
© Delphi Classics, 2017.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.
ISBN: 978 1 78656 708 6
Delphi Classics
is an imprint of
Delphi Publishing Ltd
Hastings, East Sussex
United Kingdom
Contact: sales@delphiclassics.com
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Charles Dickens: Parts Edition
This eBook is Part 23 of the Delphi Classics edition of Charles Dickens in 64 Parts. It features the unabridged text of The Cricket on the Hearth from the bestselling edition of the author’s Complete Works. Having established their name as the leading publisher of classic literature and art, Delphi Classics produce publications that are individually crafted with superior formatting, while introducing many rare texts for the first time in digital print. Our Parts Editions feature original annotations and illustrations relating to the life and works of Charles Dickens, as well as individual tables of contents, allowing you to navigate eBooks quickly and easily.
Visit here to buy the entire Parts Edition of Charles Dickens or the Complete Works of Charles Dickens in a single eBook.
Learn more about our Parts Edition, with free downloads, via this link or browse our most popular Parts here.
CHARLES DICKENS
IN 64 VOLUMES
Parts Edition Contents
1, A Dinner at Poplar Walk
The Novels
2, The Pickwick Papers
3, Oliver Twist
4, Nicholas Nickleby
5, The Old Curiosity Shop
6, Barnaby Rudge
7, Martin Chuzzlewit
8, Dombey and Son
9, David Copperfield
10, Bleak House
11, Hard Times
12, Little Dorrit
13, A Tale of Two Cities
14, Great Expectations
15, Our Mutual Friend
16, The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Droodiana
17, The Cloven Foot by Robert Henry Newell
18, John Jasper’s Secret by Henry Morford
19, Part Second of the Mystery of Edwin Drood by Thomas James
20, A Great Mystery Solved by Gillan Vase
The Christmas Novellas
21, A Christmas Carol
22, The Chimes
23, The Cricket on the Hearth
24, The Battle of Life
25, The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain
The Short Story Collections
26, Sketches by Boz
27, Master Humphrey’s Clock
28, Christmas Numbers of ‘Household Words’
29, Christmas Numbers of ‘All the Year Round’
30, Miscellaneous Short Stories
31, Reprinted Pieces
The Plays
32, The Strange Gentleman
33, The VIllage Coquettes
34, Is She His Wife?
35, The Lamplighter
36, Mr. Nightingale’s Diary
37, The Frozen Deep
38, No Thoroughfare
The Poetry
39, The Collected Poetry of Charles Dickens
The Non-Fiction
40, Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi by Thomas Egerton Wilks
41, American Notes
42, Pictures from Italy
43, The Life of Our Lord
44, A Child’s History of England
45, The Uncommercial Traveller
46, The Speeches
47, The Letters
48, Miscellaneous Papers
The Adaptations
49, Tales from Dickens by Hallie Erminie Rives
50, Dickens’ Children by Jessie Willcox Smith
51, Dickens’ Stories About Children Every Child Can Read by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
52, Sam Weller by W. T. Moncrieff
53, Oliver Twist by Charles Zachary Barnett
54, Nicholas Nickleby by Edward Stirling
55, The Old Curiosity Shop by Edward Stirling
The Criticism
56, The Criticism
The Biographies
57, The Life of Charles Dickens by John Forster
58, Forster’s Life of Dickens by George Gissing
59, Dickens by Sir Adolphus William Ward
60, Life of Charles Dickens by Sir Frank T. Marzials
61, Victorian Worthies: Charles Dickens by G. H. Blore
62, Dickens’ London by M. F. Mansfield
63, My Father as I Recall Him by Mamie Dickens
64, Brief Biography by Leslie Stephen
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The Cricket on the Hearth
Although now lesser known than its more famous predecessor A Christmas Carol, Dickens’ third Christmas novella was actually more popular with Victorian readers. It is a wonderful tale of seasonal goodwill and philanthropy, as well as providing a twist to occupy the more discerning reader.
The plot concerns John Peerybingle, a carrier, who lives with his young wife Dot, their baby boy and their nanny Tilly Slowboy. A cricket chirps on the hearth and acts as a guardian angel to the family. One day a mysterious elderly stranger comes to visit and takes up lodging at Peerybingle’s house for a few days. The life of the Peerybingles coincides with Caleb Plummer, a poor toymaker employed by the miser Mr. Tackleton. Caleb has a blind daughter Bertha, and a son Edward, who travelled to South America and is thought to be dead.
The Cricket on the Hearth was published by Bradbury and Evans on 20 December 1845. Dickens began writing the book in early October and finished it by 1 December. Like all of Dickens’ Christmas books, it was published in book form and not as a serial. Dickens later described the work as quiet and domestic… innocent and pretty.
The first edition
CONTENTS
CHIRP THE FIRST.
CHIRP THE SECOND.
CHIRP THE THIRD.
The original title page
THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH.
A FAIRY TALE OF HOME.
TO
LORD JEFFREY
THIS LITTLE STORY IS INSCRIBED,
WITH
THE AFFECTION AND ATTACHMENT OF HIS FRIEND,
THE AUTHOR.
December, 1845.
CHIRP THE FIRST.
Mrs. Peerybingle may leave it on record to the end of time that she couldn’t say which of them began it; but I say the Kettle did. I ought to know, I hope? The Kettle began it, full five minutes by the little waxy-faced Dutch clock in the corner before the Cricket uttered a chirp.
As if the clock hadn’t finished striking, and the convulsive little Haymaker at the top of it, jerking away right and left with a scythe in front of a Moorish Palace, hadn’t mowed down half an acre of imaginary grass before the Cricket joined in at all!
Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one knows that. I wouldn’t set my own opinion against the opinion of Mrs. Peerybingle, unless I were quite sure, on any account whatever. Nothing should induce me. But this is a question of fact. And the fact is, that the Kettle began it, at least five minutes before the Cricket gave any sign of being in existence. Contradict me: and I’ll say ten.
Let me narrate exactly how it happened. I should have proceeded to do so, in my very first word, but for this plain consideration — if I am to tell a story I must begin at the beginning; and how is it possible to begin at the beginning, without beginning at the Kettle?
It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of skill, you must understand, between the Kettle and the Cricket. And this is what led to it, and how it came about.
Mrs. Peerybingle going out into the raw twilight, and clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens that worked innumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in Euclid all about the yard — Mrs. Peerybingle filled the Kettle at the water butt. Presently returning, less the pattens: and a good deal less, for they were tall and Mrs. Peerybingle was but short: she set the Kettle on the fire. In doing which she lost her temper, or mislaid it for an instant; for the water — being uncomfortably cold, and in that slippy, slushy, sleety sort of state wherein it seems to penetrate through every kind of substance, patten rings included — had laid hold of Mrs. Peerybingle’s toes, and even splashed her legs. And when we rather plume ourselves (with reason too) upon our legs, and keep ourselves particularly neat in point of stockings, we find this, for the moment, hard to bear.
Besides, the Kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It wouldn’t allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn’t hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it would lean forward with a drunken air, and dribble, a very Idiot of a Kettle, on the hearth. It was quarrelsome; and hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle’s fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvy, and then, with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived sideways in — down to the very bottom of the Kettle. And the hull of the Royal George has never made half the monstrous resistance to coming out of the water, which the lid of that Kettle employed against Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again.
It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then; carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, I won’t boil. Nothing shall induce me!
But Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good humour, dusted her chubby little hands against each other, and sat down before the Kettle: laughing. Meantime, the jolly blaze uprose and fell, flashing and gleaming on the little Haymaker at the top of the Dutch clock, until one might have thought he stood stock still before the Moorish Palace, and nothing was in motion but the flame.
He was on the move, however; and had his spasms, two to the second, all right and regular. But his sufferings when the clock was going to strike, were frightful to behold; and when a Cuckoo looked out of a trap-door in the Palace, and gave note six times, it