🙛The enormous vogue of A Christmas Carol has probably served, in a measure, to draw the attention of at least the casual reader away from the fact that Dickens wrote also four other Christmas books on a somewhat similar plan. I do not claim that The Chimes is worthy to stand beside the incomparable Carol. Indeed, I do not think it even attains the stature of The Cricket on the Hearth. But it does happen to afford an unusually interesting “test case” for the study of Dickens as both artist and prophet: first, because we know much more about the circumstances of its genesis and growth than is the case with
