The Chimes: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Chimes, credited to Charles Dickens, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Chimes, by Charles Dickens. Read by Ruth Golding. The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In is the second of Charles Dickens' Christmas books, published in 1844. Its contemporary setting is the "Hungry Forties", a time of social and political unrest, and the book has a strong moral message. It remained popular for many years, although its fame has since been eclipsed by that of A Christmas Carol, the first of the series. Our hero Toby ("Trotty") Veck is a poor but hard-working man, whose beloved daughter Meg is due to marry on New Year's Day. Trotty, who is appalled by newspaper reports of crime and immorality, is further depressed by his encounters with the rich and influential Alderman Cute and Sir Joseph Bowley, who make him feel that the poor have no right to exist in society, and his daughter has no right to marry. Trotty hears messages in the chimes of the church bells, which lead him to visit the belfry at night on New Year's Eve...(Introduction by Ruth Golding) Details of the source text may be found on the LibriVox catalogue page for this item.

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Chimes
• Author credits: Charles Dickens
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 4
• Listed recording duration: 4:18:27

Catalogue topics

• christmas books
• new year
• poverty
• social history
• the poor
• bells
• Victorian

Track guide

1. 1 - First Quarter — 1:06:50
2. 2 - Second Quarter — 1:01:03
3. 3 - Third Quarter — 1:04:16
4. 4 - Fourth Quarter — 59:31

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.