The Chimes

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.1

Word count: 169K words
Chapters: 17

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Chimes by Charles DickensAuthor: Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Sep 1, 1996

Editor's review

The Chimes is a novella Charles Dickens published in 1844, following A Christmas Carol, and like it uses a holiday fable to voice social concern. The story centers on a poor porter, Toby Veck, and a dream in which the bells and spirits lead him to see how poverty, pride, and indifference distort human hearts, and to reconsider his own resentment of suffering. The work continues Dickens's sympathy for the fate of the poor, with a strongly allegorical and lyrical style; it is short but emotionally rich, suited to reading around the winter holidays. As a public-domain ebook, the text is easily available, useful for understanding the arc of Dickens's Christmas books and as an accessible entry point for close reading of classic English prose. Watch for the recurring image of the bells and its symbolic meaning.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy Dickens and want to fill in his Christmas novellas
Readers interested in Victorian social issues and allegorical fiction
Advanced learners of English seeking a classic text of moderate length
Readers who want seasonal literature around the holidays

Not a good fit for

Dickens readers expecting long, complex plots and multi-strand narratives
Beginners with weak English reading skills who need a Chinese translation alongside
Readers who dislike allegorical moralizing and prefer realism

Reading tips

Familiarize yourself with the basic setup of A Christmas Carol first; it makes the allegorical method easier to grasp.
Note each recurrence of the bell imagery and record its context and meaning as you read.
The book is short; read it in two or three sittings, reviewing Toby's psychological shifts after each section.
After finishing, compare it with Dickens's other Christmas works for similarities and differences in theme and structure.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book related to A Christmas Carol?

It belongs to the same series of Christmas novellas and was published after A Christmas Carol; both focus on poverty and social indifference and both use allegory and dream vision, but the stories and characters are independent, so you need not read A Christmas Carol first.

How difficult is the English, and what level is it for?

It is Victorian English with long sentences and period diction, but it is short and tightly plotted. Readers with some experience of English classics will find it approachable; beginners should use annotations or a translation alongside.

Why is the book called The Chimes?

The bells are the central image of the book, running through Toby's dream experience; they create a holiday atmosphere and also carry a symbolic sense of warning and awakening. Watch for the plot and the characters' psychology each time the bells appear.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 Author

Charles Dickens (Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870) is one of the most influential novelists in the history of English literature. The library holds 115 of his works, including novels, novellas and short stories; representative titles include The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and A Christmas Carol. He was known for serialized fiction, with plot twists and vivid characters, and he used humor and satire to portray Victorian society, paying particular attention to poor children, the lower classes and education, and his works often convey warmth and moral concern. In the library his works are often classified under "inspirational growth," and many of his novels have been adapted for stage and screen and are widely circulated. Public information about the details of his life is limited, so no speculation is offered here.