The Cricket on the Hearth

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Jim Dale

Length: 3 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

The holidays are upon us, and this year Audible is very happy to present to our members one of Charles Dickens’ most popular Christmas stories, The Cricket on the Hearth. This holiday classic (original subtitle: “A Fairy Tale of Home”) tells the innocent, picturesque, and charming story of a poor family and their would-be guardian angel; in short, a delightful vision of Victorian Christmas. As always, a great story calls for a great voice, so we’ve brought in legendary actor and record-breaking Audie and Grammy award-winning narrator Jim Dale (The Night Circus). Happy holidays and happy listening!

Public Domain (P)2013 Audible Inc.

Slow starter and hard to follow, but good tale

This was a free Audiobook and that fact (plus the awesome narration by Jim Dale) kept me listening. The book is written in a bit of an older style of English, so that and the meandering nature of the story makes it a bit hard to follow (especially in the beginning).

I'm glad I kept with it though, as once things got rolling and the REAL meat of the story kicked in it proved to be a great tale.

Charles Dickens' The Cricket on the Hearth

If you’ve listened to books by Charles Dickens before, how does this one compare?

I'm not a Charles Dickens fan, per se. This is the second work of his that I've actually completed, and I think that's due to the short length of this story. But the other one was A Christmas Carol, and I think it's a bit unfair to compare them. It's a good quick read.

What does Jim Dale bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

I thought he was quite good. He obviously gives good inflection to the characters and makes them distinct.

Any additional comments?

I'm not really a fan of the story.

Pretty Good Listen

I enjoyed this story quite a bit. The more I read Dickens' work the more I appreciate it.

The story had some good messages but they aren't as powerfully conveyed as some of his other books in my opinion.

It's Charles Dickens... that's all I need to know

Very charming Victorian era story and everything you'd expect from a Charlies Dickens story. Jim Dale's narration is very pleasant and memorable. I'm going to have to replay this for my children.

Didn't enjoy

Any additional comments?

This has to be my least favorite Dickens. It was just not interested in the story at all.

A Sweet Old-fashioned tale

Dickenson corniest tale, but Jim Dale makes it come to life. And you have to love Boxer!

Superb Dickens

Having heard about The Cricket On The Hearth endlessly all my childhood, but somehow not having read or had read to me the book itself, it has been a special Christmas treat. Thank you Mr. Cricket for all your good deeds.

Wonderfully intricate and fanciful plot. The usual marvelously Dickensian cast of characters: mistakes made, rectified and the grand unexpected ending where all comes out as one would wish.

Dickens ...bah humbug

I always find Dickens tedious and this story was no different though there is a nice twist towards the end.

Great feel-good story with outstanding narration

Great little feel-good story! This was a free holiday gift from Audible, and it was narrated by the master, Jim Dale. Dale makes any great story outstanding, and this was no exception.

So mawkish that it reads like a Dickens parody

Wow! This fairly famous (but probably seldom read) Christmas story is so unbelievably mawkish, contrived, and predictable that it reads like a parody of Dickens at his sentimental worst. It's SO ludicrous that, for me, at least, it actually taints the pleasure I've long felt in his "A Christmas Carol," in that some of the same attitudes, the same detailed, slightly condescending descriptions of domestic jollity and affection, the same condescending humor, and the same conveniently quick personality transformations occur in "Cricket," suggesting that Dickens was just a cynical writing machine, awfully good at pushing the buttons of his Victorian readers.

The story is also, of course, extremely wordy by modern standards -- instead of a line telling us that a kettle was bubbling on the hearth, we get ten minutes of ornate description and rhetorical flourishes — but then, that was the style two centuries ago. Surprisingly, for all its wordiness, I also found it, at times, somewhat hard to follow, as if, for all its elaborate language, Dickens may have dashed it off too quickly.

P.S. Jim Dale's narration is, needless to say, flawless.