The Cricket on the Hearth: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Cricket on the Hearth, 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 Cricket on the Hearth, by Charles Dickens (1812-1870). Read by Ruth Golding. The tale of John Peerybingle, the good-hearted carrier, and his young wife Mary ('Dot'), interwoven with the story of poor toymaker Caleb Plummer, his beloved blind daughter Bertha, and the harsh old toy merchant Tackleton, who is due to marry May Fielding, a childhood friend of Dot. Comic relief is provided by Tilly Slowboy, the disaster-prone nursemaid of John and Dot's baby, and Boxer, the family dog. The cricket who chirps on the family hearth assumes fairy form to save the day when disaster looms in the form of a mysterious stranger. Sentimental? Certainly - but this, the third (1845) of Dickens' short Christmas books, is as charming and irresistible as its predecessors A Christmas Carol (1843) and The Chimes (1844). The novella is subdivided into chapters called 'Chirps', similar to the 'Quarters' of The Chimes or the 'Staves' of A Christmas Carol. (Introduction by Ruth Golding)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Cricket on the Hearth
• Author credits: Charles Dickens
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 8
• Listed recording duration: 3:54:11

Catalogue topics

• novella
• fiction
• christmas book
• romance
• marriage
• fairy
• family

Track guide

1. 1 - Chirp the First, part 1 — 33:16
2. 2 - Chirp the First, part 2 — 36:24
3. 3 - Chirp the Second, part 1 — 27:44
4. 4 - Chirp the Second, part 2 — 29:10
5. 5 - Chirp the Second, part 3 — 20:56
6. 6 - Chirp the Third, part 1 — 20:26
7. 7 - Chirp the Third, part 2 — 28:22
8. 8 - Chirp the Third, part 3 — 37:56

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.