11-year-old actor Eden Giuliano presents a brand new line of exciting children’s stories from Icon!
The now classic Christmas tales by Charles Dickens were written at a time when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols and newer customs such as Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth and by the Christmas stories of other authors including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, A Christmas Carol, and was inspired following a visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, one of several establishments for London’s street children. The treatment of the poor and the ability of a selfish man to redeem himself by transforming into a more sympathetic character are the key themes of the story. There is long standing discussion among academics as to whether this story, in particular, was a fully secular story, or if it is indeed, a Christian allegory.
Charles Dickens captured the zeitgeist of the mid-Victorian revival of the Christmas holiday. Dickens freely acknowledged the influence of the modern Western observance of Christmas, and later inspired several aspects of Christmas, including family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games and a festive generosity of spirit.
We know you will enjoy this very special audio book from Icon Audio Arts presented by young Eden Giuliano!
Host Eden Giuliano
Series producer Avalon Giuliano in New York
Produced by Alex Franchi in Milan and Geoffrey Giuliano in Delhi
Edited and mixed by Macc Kay in Bangkok
Dedicated to Vrndarani Devi 1953-2017
Music by AudioNautix
©2019 Icon Audio Arts (P)2019 Icon Audio Arts

Charles Dickens’ Christmas classic-written in time for the 1843 holiday season-sold out its initial printing of 6,000 copies in one day. It remains Dickens’ most widely read and best-loved work, guaranteed to warm and uplift with the simplicity of its message and the depth of its honest truths. Bah! Humbug! It’s Christmas Eve and miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is in a foul temper-good cheer and joyful spending turn his very insides to vinegar. But before Scrooge sees the dawn break on yet another miserable Christmas morning, he will have come face-to-face with a parade of startling apparitions, and most disconcerting of all-himself. Dickens fills his entertaining Christmas ghost story with unforgettable characters and richly drawn settings. Veteran narrator Frank Muller provides the perfect voice for the mean-spirited Scrooge and his frightful visitors.

Ebenezer Scrooge refuses to accept that Christmas is a time for peace and goodwill to all men. While those less fortunate than him are charitable, Scrooge remains set in his curmudgeonly ways. One Christmas Eve, however, his outlook begins to change with a visit from the ghost of his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley. Marley’s ghost forewarns Scrooge of three other spirits who will come to haunt him that night–the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come. Accompanied by these, Scrooge is granted first a glimpse of his own past and then an insight into the home life of his poor yet loyal clerk, Bob Cratchit. Scrooge looks on with something approaching pity as the Cratchits gather around a paltry table to celebrate the festive season. Is the sight of others’ hardships, coupled with a dark vision of what the future may hold, enough to make Scrooge see the folly of his ways?

“Every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding,” says Scrooge. Mean old Scrooge despises Christmas, until Christmas Eve, when a haunted voice from the past changes his life–overnight!

Many know the story, but few have experienced the marvel of the book. If you are one who has never read this family classic, this is the time to do so. Listen to our unabridged recording and make this a truly Charles Dickens Christmas. And, “God bless us, everyone!”

Based on the classic story by Charles Dickens

In this fully dramatized adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Michael Dick (Ebenezer Scrooge) and cast take you on an incredible journey into the supernatural as a miserly man comes to realize the true spirit of Christmas.

Featuring virtuoso performances from the entire cast, riveting sound effects, and original music, Voices in the Wind Audio Theatre’s production of A Christmas Carol is an adventure in sound and imagination.

Marley was dead, to begin with…’ And yet, he manages to visit his old partner, the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, and send him on a transformative journey, led by three ghosts. First to his own past, where he sees again the love he spurned, then to the present, where he sees those around him going about their holiday preparations, and then into his own future, to see his just reward. A Christmas favorite, it will warm your heart with favorite memories, and remind you how the true Christmas spirit comes from giving with love.

A Christmas Carol is an essential part of Christmas for families everywhere. Since the book’s publication in 1843, the story of miserly Scrooge’s change of heart after the visit of three spirits has been encountered by children in innumerable books plays movies and cartoons based on Dickens’s ghost story.

This audiobook edition introduces children to the powerful words of the original text in an adaptation based on the one Dickens made for his public readings. Andy Sacs narration bring the classic story to life. Hundreds of facts explore Dickens’s London; the wealth and poverty, and Christmas customs and ideals then and now.

Dickens’s marvellous words and their fascinating context are brought together to inspire a new generation with Dickens’s message – that we can and we should change ourselves and our world for the better. Ebenezer Scrooge and all the well-known characters from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol are brought to life in this tantalising audiobook.

© 1911; 2000 Charles Dickens; Shona McKellar © 2000 DK Audio

“Bah Humbug!” That’s how Ebeneezer Scrooge feels about Christmas–until the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future decide to show the crotchety old miser the error of his ways. Together they travel through time, revisiting all the people who have played an important role in Scrooge’s life. And as their journey concludes, Scrooge is reminded of what it means to have love in his heart, and what the true spirit of Christmas is all about. A timeless story the whole family will enjoy!

“Bah Humbug!” That’s how Ebeneezer Scrooge feels about Christmas–until the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future decide to show the crotchety old miser the error of his ways. Together they travel through time, revisiting all the people who have played an important role in Scrooge’s life. And as their journey concludes, Scrooge is reminded of what it means to have love in his heart, and what the true spirit of Christmas is all about. A timeless story the whole family will enjoy!

This is a SoundCraft Audiobooks production – enhanced with music and sound effects – of the most beloved Christmas book of all time, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
It tells the story of the miserly and miserable Ebenezer Scrooge, who is given one, final chance at redemption on Christmas Eve when he is visited by the ghost of his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge is guided by three Spirits – of Christmas Past, Present and Future – who show the old miser the error of his ways.
Easily one of the most heralded and widely-adapted holiday stories ever created, A Christmas Carol is Dickens at his finest and most moving. A must-listen addition to any library.

11-year-old actor Eden Giuliano presents a brand new line of exciting children’s stories from Icon!
A Christmas Carol, is a novella by the great Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. A Christmas Carol recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley, and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.
The now classic tale was written at a time when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols and newer customs such as Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth and by the Christmas stories of other authors including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, and was inspired following a visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, one of several establishments for London’s street children. The treatment of the poor and the ability of a selfish man to redeem himself by transforming into a more sympathetic character are the key themes of the story. There is discussion among academics as to whether this was a fully secular story, or if it is a Christian allegory.
A Christmas Carol captured the zeitgeist of the mid-Victorian revival of the Christmas holiday. Dickens had acknowledged the influence of the modern Western observance of Christmas and later inspired several aspects of Christmas, including family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games and a festive generosity of spirit.
We know you will enjoy this very special audio book from Icon Audio Arts presented by young Eden Giuliano!
Host Eden Giuliano
Series producer Avalon Giuliano in New York
Produced by Alex Franchi in Milan and Geoffrey Giuliano in Delhi
Edited and mixed by Macc Kay in Bangkok
Dedicated to Vrndarani Devi 1953-2017
Music by AudioNautix

A holiday classic by Charles Dickens. Originally published in 1843, Dickens worried about the disparity between the wealthy and the impoverished, and it was his attempt to bring this disparity into the light of day, to appeal to the die-hard capitalists to take care of the downtrodden masses. Since this inequity continues, this story is still popular, and will probably continue to be so for the foreseeable future.

first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. A Christmas Carol recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.
Narrated by Michael Ward

The classic Christmas story by Charles Dickens. Evil, old Ebeneezer Scrooge has been a skinflint all his life. His only friend and partner died and he didn’t mourn, he only used it as an opportunity to strike a deal. Scrooge is visited by three ghosts. Each of them shows Scrooge scenes intended to make him change his evil ways.
A Christmas Carol is possibly Dickens’s most famous work, though there are so many to choose from. 
A Christmas Carol was published in 1843 on 19 December and the first edition sold out by Christmas Eve. Dickens had self-published, in that he paid for the costs of the printing and publication, which was a shrewd financial bet as it turned out. Dickens was only 31 at the time. 
A Christmas Carol was so popular that a bootleg edition was published in 1844 and Dickens sued the bootleggers. He did public readings of the story from 1849 and went on tour with it, performing it 127 times until his death in 1870.

Grammy Award Nominee for Best Spoken Word Album!

Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit, and Ebenezer Scrooge come to marvelous life in Patrick Stewart’s critically-acclaimed solo interpretation of A Christmas Carol.

The star of X-Men and The Royal Shakespeare Company, Stewart has performed his one-man stage production of this holiday classic to sell-out audiences. Now, in this Grammy-nominated studio recording of the dazzling achievement that has thrilled audiences in New York and Los Angeles, Stewart invites listeners to rediscover the timeless story at its source: Dickens’ own words, presented in a soaring, virtuoso solo performance in which Stewart plays all parts.

A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843. It recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.
Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol during a period when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols, and newer customs such as Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth and by the Christmas stories of other authors, including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella and was inspired following a visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, one of several establishments for London’s street children. The treatment of the poor and the ability of a selfish man to redeem himself by transforming into a more sympathetic character are the key themes of the story. There is discussion among academics as to whether this is a fully secular story, or if it is a Christian allegory.
Published on December 19, the first edition sold out by Christmas Eve; by the end of 1844 thirteen editions had been released. Most critics reviewed the novella favorably. The story was illicitly copied in January 1844; Dickens took legal action against the publishers, who went bankrupt, further reducing Dickens’s small profits from the publication. In 1849 he began public readings of the story, which proved so successful he undertook 127 further performances until 1870, the year of his death. A Christmas Carol has never been out of print and has been translated into several languages; the story has been adapted many times for film, stage, opera and other media.

A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. A Christmas Carol recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man.
Edited by Macc Kay in Bangkok
Production executive Avalon Giuliano in London
ICON Intern Eden Giuliano in Delhi
Music By AudioNautix With Their Kind Permission
©2020 Child’s Play Audio (P) Child’s Play Audio LLC
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney and Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken-word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. He is also a well known movie actor.

Do you want to listen to A Christmas Carol? If so then keep reading…
A Christmas Carol is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall on 19 December 1843. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim. Carol tells the story of a bitter old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge and his transformation into a gentler, kindlier man after visitations by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Yet to Come. The book was written at a time when the British were examining and exploring Christmas traditions from the past as well as new customs such as Christmas cards and Christmas trees. Carol singing took a new lease on life during this time. Dickens’ sources for the tale appear to be many and varied, but are, principally, the humiliating experiences of his childhood, his sympathy for the poor, and various Christmas stories and fairy tales. Dickens’ Carol was one of the greatest influences in rejuvenating the old Christmas traditions of England, but, while it brings to the reader images of light, joy, warmth and life, it also brings strong and unforgettable images of darkness, despair, coldness, sadness, and death. Scrooge himself is the embodiment of winter, and, just as winter is followed by spring and the renewal of life, so too is Scrooge’s cold, pinched heart restored to the innocent goodwill he had known in his childhood and youth. A Christmas Carol remains popular—having never been out of print—and has been adapted many times to film, stage, opera, and other media.
What are you waiting for A Christmas Carol is one click away, select the “Download” button in the top right corner NOW!

Originally published in the 1850 Christmas edition of Dickens’ journal Household Words, A Christmas Tree is considered to be one of Dickens’s more autobiographical pieces. In it, decorations on the Christmas tree trigger the narrator’s memories of Christmases past. This version of A Christmas Tree is part of Dreamscape’s The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens.

A House to Let is a short story originally published in 1858 in the Christmas edition of Dickens’ Household Words magazine. Each of the contributors wrote a chapter (stories within a story, or, in the case of Adelaide Anne Procter, poetry) and the story was edited by Dickens, who also wrote the first and last chapters with Wilkie Collins.
The plot concerns an elderly woman, Sophonisba, who notices signs of life in a supposedly empty dilapidated house (the eponymous “House to Let”) opposite her own, and employs the efforts of an elderly admirer, Jabez Jarber, and her servant, Trottle, to discover what is happening within.
Produced by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Garret Giuliano
©2021 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) 2021 Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller ‘Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney’ and ‘Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison’. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. In addition, Giuliano is an occasional lecturer at Northwestern University. He is also a well-known movie actor in such films as ‘Mechanic Resurrection and the ‘Scorpion King’ series, among many. Geoffrey is a near lifelong student of Bhakti (Devotional) Yoga and an ardent animal rights advocate. He makes his home with his son Eden in Bangkok and Vrndavana, and Jaipur India.

“A House to Let” is a short story by Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Anne Procter. It was originally published in 1858 in the Christmas edition of Dickens’ Household Words magazine. Collins wrote the introduction and collaborated with Dickens on the second story and ending, while Gaskell and Proctor wrote the remainder.
When elderly Sophonisba moves to London for a change of tone, she notices something unusual about the supposedly unoccupied house to let across the street. She entreaties her friends and confidants to investigate the matter, and they return with a collection of tales of previous occupants, but what exactly is the secret of the mysterious house to let?
Narrated by Michael Ward

Novel by Charles Dickens, published both serially and in book form in 1859. The story is set in the late 18th century against the background of the French Revolution. Although Dickens borrowed from Thomas Carlyle’s history, The French Revolution, for his sprawling tale of London and revolutionary Paris, the novel offers more drama than accuracy. The scenes of large-scale mob violence are especially vivid, if superficial in historical understanding. The complex plot involves Sydney Carton’s sacrifice of his own life on behalf of his friends Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette. While political events drive the story, Dickens takes a decidedly antipolitical tone, lambasting both aristocratic tyranny and revolutionary excess–the latter memorably caricatured in Madame Defarge, who knits beside the guillotine. The book is perhaps best known for its opening lines, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” and for Carton’s last speech, in which he says of his replacing Darnay in a prison cell, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.” — The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature

Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, A Tale of Two Cities is a sprawling tale of London and revolutionary Paris with a complex plot portraying the results of terror and treason, love and supreme sacrifice.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”—opening line of A Tale of Two Cities

It was the time of the French Revolution, a time of great change and great danger. It was a time when injustice was met by a lust for vengeance, and rarely was a distinction made between the innocent and the guilty. Against this tumultuous historical backdrop, Dickens’ dramatic story of adventure and courage unfolds.

Unjustly imprisoned for eighteen years in the Bastille, Dr. Alexandre Manette is reunited with his daughter, the gentle Lucie Manette, and safely transported from France to England. It would seem that they could now take up the threads of their lives in peace. As fate would have it, however, the two are summoned to the Old Bailey to testify against a young Frenchman, Charles Darnay, falsely accused of treason. Strangely enough, Darnay bears an uncanny resemblance to another man in the courtroom: Sydney Carton, a dissolute barrister. It is a coincidence that saves Darnay from certain doom more than once, as the two men’s fates become intertwined with that of the Revolution.

And there is Madame Defarge, a female revolutionary who has an implacable grudge against the aristocratic Evrémonde dynasty and who knits as she watches the beheadings.

The storming of the Bastille, the death carts with their doomed human cargo, the swift drop of the blade of La Guillotine—this is the French Revolution that Charles Dickens vividly captures. Brilliantly plotted, the novel is rich in drama, romance, and heroics that culminate in a daring prison escape in the shadow of the guillotine.

Unjustly imprisoned for 18 years in the Bastille, Dr. Alexandre Manette is reunited with his daughter, Lucie, and safely transported from France to England. It would seem that they could take up the threads of their lives in peace. As fate would have it though, the pair are summoned to the Old Bailey to testify against a young Frenchman – Charles Darnay – falsely accused of treason. Strangely enough, Darnay bears an uncanny resemblance to another man in the courtroom, the dissolute lawyer’s clerk Sydney Carton. It is a coincidence that saves Darnay from certain doom more than once. Brilliantly plotted, the novel is rich in drama, romance, and heroics that culminate in a daring prison escape in the shadow of the guillotine.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” It was the French Revolution. Unjustly imprisoned for years in the Bastille, Dr. Manette is reunited with his daughter, Lucie, and safely transported from France to England where they hope to return to their quiet lives. However, they are summoned to the Old Bailey in the trial of Charles Darnay, a young Frenchman falsely accused of treason. Strangely enough, Darnay bears an uncanny resemblance to another man in the courtroom: Sydney Carton, a dissolute barrister. It is a coincidence that saves Darnay from certain doom more than once.

The storming of the Bastille, the death carts with their doomed human cargo, and Madame Defarge, who knits beside the guillotine, are portrayed with drama, romance, and heroics that culminate in a daring prison escape in the shadow of the guillotine.

After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille the aging Dr Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil lanes of London, they are all drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror and soon fall under the lethal shadow of La Guillotine.

This novel provides a highly charged examination of human suffering and human sacrifice, private experience and public history, during the French Revolution.
A Tale of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens’s most exciting novels. Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, it tells the story of a family threatened by the terrible events of the past. Doctor Manette was wrongly imprisoned in the Bastille for eighteen years without trial by the aristocratic authorities. Finally released, he is reunited with his daughter, Lucie, who despite her French ancestry has been brought up in London. Lucie falls in love with Charles Darnay, another expatriate, who has abandoned wealth and a title in France because of his political convictions. When revolution breaks out in Paris, Darnay returns to the city to help an old family servant, but there he is arrested because of the crimes committed by his relations. His wife, Lucie, their young daughter, and her aged father follow him across the channel, thus putting all their lives in danger.

Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, A Tale of Two Cities is one of Charles Dickens’s most popular and dramatic stories.

It begins on a muddy English road in an atmosphere charged with mystery and it ends in the Paris of the Revolution with one of the most famous acts of self-sacrifice in literature. In between lies one of Dickens’s most exciting books—a historical novel that, generation after generation, has given readers access to the profound human dramas that lie behind cataclysmic social and political events. Famous for its vivid characters, including the courageous French nobleman Charles Darnay, the vengeful revolutionary Madame Defarge, and cynical Englishman Sydney Carton, who redeems his ill-spent life in a climactic moment at the guillotine (“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done”), the novel is also a powerful study of crowd psychology and the dark emotions aroused by the Revolution, illuminated by Dickens’s lively comedy.

With an Introduction by Simon Schama

A Tale of Two Cities is an 1859 historical novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris and his release to live in London with his daughter Lucie, whom he had never met. The story is set against the conditions that led up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.
Dickens’ best-known work of historical fiction, A Tale of Two Cities is regularly cited as the best-selling novel of all time. In 2003, the novel was ranked 63rd on the BBC’s The Big Read poll.[4] The novel has been adapted for film, television, radio, and the stage, and has continued to have an influence on popular culture.
Produced by Devin Lawerence
Edited by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Giuliano
Music By AudioNautix With Their Kind Permission
©2020 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney and Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken-word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. He is also a well known movie actor.

Following her recent adaptation of Great Expectations, bestselling novelist and award-winning audiobook narrator Alison Larkin changes the gender of Scrooge in this exciting new recording of A Christmas Carol.

It’s the same beloved Christmas story, only one thing has changed. In this version, Scrooge is a woman.
Everything else, though, is pure Dickens. So, the characters around Scrooge behave as if it were quite normal for a woman to learn to read and write, fall in love with and reject a woman and have the kind of career only men could dream of in 1843.
It’s an irresistible question. If gender had been simply irrelevant in the 19th century where would we all be now?

11-year-old actor Eden Giuliano presents a brand new line of exciting children’s stories from Icon!

“Please sir, I want some more,” the famous line spoken by Oliver Twist at age nine, becomes the tipping point of a huge change in Oliver’s life. He is soon captured into the service of the evil Fagin and his gang of pick-pocketing boys. Mr. Brownlow, however, saves him from arrest, and for the first time in his young life Oliver finds comfort and caring. Unfortunately, he is soon recaptured into the seedy world from which he he had escaped, and meets with Bill Sykes, a highly dangerous criminal. There are numerous delightful and suitably wicked characters which carry the story along, such as the clever, Artful Dodger, a mean boy of the streets under Fagin, Mr. Bumble the Beadle, ever looking for ways to get rid of the naughty Oliver, Nancy who makes a fateful betrayal, and the Maylies, whose deep affection Oliver craves. The author’s descriptions of the back street life in London of that time, illumine the abject poverty and the way in which the hopeless poor were treated during that time. Charles Dickens wrote Oliver Twist as a popular newspaper serial in 1837.

We know you will enjoy this very special series from Icon Audio Arts hosted by young Eden Giuliano!

Host Eden Giuliano
Series producer Avalon Giuliano in New York
Produced by Alex Franchi in Milan and Geoffrey Giuliano in Delhi
Edited and mixed by Macc Kay in Bangkok
Special thanks to Brandon Stickney & Sanjay Khemani

DEDICATED TO VRNDA DEVI

Music by Audio Nautix

11-year-old actor Eden Giuliano presents a brand new line of exciting children’s stories from Icon!
Dorothy is swallowed by an earthquake! And that is just the start of Dorothy’s adventures in this exciting and fun book. She and her kitten, Eureka are on their way home and stop to visit a relative in California. But the earthquake opens the ground under their feet and everyone, including the horse and buggy and her cousin Zeb fall deep, deep into the earth. Down there they find they can walk on air, but are attacked by the strange and dangerous vegetable creatures. But who should drop in but Dorothy’s old friend the Wizard of Oz with 9 tiny piglets! And all the animals can talk! From there the adventure really begins to get strange but in the end all is well when Ozma rescues them but I won’t tell you how. Whew! what an exciting book!
We know you will enjoy this very special series from Icon Audio Arts hosted by young Eden Giuliano!
Series Host Eden Giuliano
Series producer Avalon Giuliano in New York
Produced by Alex Franchi in Milan and Geoffrey Giuliano in Delhi
Edited and mixed by Macc Kay in Bangkok
Special thanks to Brandon Stickney and Sanjay Khemani
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF VRNDA DEVI 
Music by AudioNautix
©2019 Icon Audio Arts (P)2019 Icon Audio Arts

Dickens’ first historical novel is set in 1780s England at the time of the Gordon Riots. In a case of mistaken identity, Barnaby Rudge–a pale half-wit with long red hair who dresses all in green and carries a large raven on his back–is arrested as the leader of a mob of anti-Catholic rioters. He is condemned to death on the gallows, but an upright locksmith named Gabriel Varden comes to his aid.

Set beneath the cloud of an unsolved murder, this classic tale of treachery and forbidden love is often overlooked by present-day readers. Nevertheless, Dickens provides another memorable cast of characters, including the dull-witted, tyrannical John Willet, Dennis the Hangman, and Hugh the savage ostler.

Barnaby Rudge is a historical novel by British novelist Charles Dickens. Barnaby Rudge was one of two novels (the other was The Old Curiosity Shop) Dickens published in his short-lived (1840–1841) weekly serial Master Humphrey’s Clock. This book is largely set during the Gordon Riots of 1780.
Barnaby Rudge was the fifth of Dickens’ novels to be published. It had initially been planned to appear as his first, but changes of publisher led to many delays, and it first appeared in serial form in the Clock from February to November 1841. This was Dickens’ first historical novel. His only other is A Tale of Two Cities (1859), also set in revolutionary times.
Produced by Devin Lawerence
Edited by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Giuliano
Music By AudioNautix With Their Kind Permission
©2020 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney and Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken-word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. He is also a well known movie actor.

Bleak House opens in a London shrouded by fog–a fog that swirls most densely about the Court of Chancery, where the obscure case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce lies lost in endless litigation, slowly devouring an inheritance in legal costs.

Against this ominous background, Dickens’ rich tapestry of a novel weaves together the fortunes and desires of several characters whose fates are tied to the case: Ada and Richard, two young orphans who stand to inherit and wish to marry when they do; the worthy John Jarndyce, their voluntary guardian while the case is pending; and Esther Summerson, Jarndyce’s protegee, whose romance is complicated by torn loyalties and whose heritage is shrouded in mystery and scandal. This darkly comic portrait of London society is often regarded as Dickens’ best.

The Chancery Court had jurisdiction over all matters of equity, including administration of estates, the guardianship of orphans, and disputed property disbursement. In Dickens’ time, some cases could take years to be settled, changing the lives of those involved.
Esther Summerson, a young woman raised in a tough and unloving atmosphere, is unexpectedly requested to be a companion to two teenage orphans, Richard Carstone and Ada Clare, for whom the court has appointed as guardian, John Jarndyce. They take up residence at Mr. Jarndyce’s home, Bleak House. The story of their lives and fortunes is the main thrust of the novel, and is related at times through the eyes of Esther, whose gentle point of view gives the reader a different and more intimate perspective.
Produced by Devin Lawerence
Edited by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Giuliano
Music By AudioNautix With Their Kind Permission
©2020 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney and Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken-word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. He is also a well known movie actor.

Widely regarded as Dickens’s masterpiece, Bleak House centers on the generations-long lawsuit Jarndyce and Jarndyce, through which “whole families have inherited legendary hatreds.” Focusing on Esther Summerson, a ward of John Jarndyce, the novel traces Esther’s romantic coming-of-age and, in classic Dickensian style, the gradual revelation of long-buried secrets, all set against the foggy backdrop of the Court of Chancery. Mixing romance, mystery, comedy, and satire, Bleak House limits the suffering caused by the intricate inefficiency of the law.

A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman and Hall and first released on 19 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge’s ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visitations of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim. The book was written and published at a time when Britain was experiencing a nostalgic interest in its forgotten Christmas traditions, and at the time when new customs such as the Christmas tree and greeting cards were being introduced. Dickens’ sources for the tale appear to be many and varied but are principally the humiliating experiences of his childhood, his sympathy for the poor, and the Christmas stories of Washington Irving. The tale was pirated immediately, was adapted several times to the stage, and has been credited with restoring the holiday to one of merriment and festivity in Britain and America after a period of sobriety and somberness. A Christmas Carol remains popular, has never been out of print, and has been adapted to film, opera, and other media.

Charles Dickens is known for writing the greatest of all Christmas stories…A Christmas Carol, but few know that he wrote a number of other short stories for that holiday season. Here in one wonderful audio collection are six short stories about Christmas–A Christmas Tree, What Christmas is as We Grow Older, The Poor Relation’s Story, The Child’s Story, The Schoolboy’s Story and Nobody’s Story.

The endearing story of David Copperfield’s endeavor to become the hero of his own life, with its intriguing correspondence to the author’s own life, has delighted readers for generations. Dickens himself called this book his “favourite child,” and it is his most quoted novel. Now you can have the pleasure of hearing Patrick Tull’s brilliant narration of Dickens beloved classic. Listen as David recounts the experiences of his rise to successful novelist-his wretched boyhood , the drudgery of his various jobs, his marriage to the boss’ pretty daughter, his flight to the continent, and finally, a reunion with his true love. Tull’s marvelously resonant voice ushers us smoothly through young David’s trials. His ability to move deftly between different accents gives new life to some of the best-known characters in all of literature. Dora, Uriah Heep, and Mr. Micawber. Close your eyes and soon you’ll find yourself sitting in a little Victorian parlor listening as David tells his story.

David Copperfieldis the timeless tale of a thoughtful orphan discovering how to live and love in a cutthroat, indifferent adult world. It firmly embraces all the eternal freshness, the comic delights, the tender warmth, and the ghastly horrors of childhood.

Of all Charles Dickens’ novels, this is perhaps the most revealing, both of Dickens himself and of the society of his time. Certainly Copperfield’s experiences–his early rejection, child labor in a warehouse, experience as a journalist, and final success as a novelist–are strikingly similar to Dickens’ own. It is little wonder that Dickens said of it, “Of all my books I like this the best…Like many fond parents I have in my heart of hearts a favorite child. And his name isDavid Copperfield.”

First published in 1850, David Copperfield begins with avid the tragedy of David’s brother dying when David is just a boy. After this episode, he is sent by his step-father to work in London for a wine merchant. When conditions worsen he decides to run away and embarks on a journey by foot from London to Dover. On his arrival, he finds his eccentric aunt, Betsey Trotwood who becomes his new guardian. Being witness to the formation of David’s character is quite fascinating. David begins as a strong child whose only aspiration is a better life. On the way to his adulthood, David sees how people enter and leave his life. Romanticism takes its place in David’s life as he gets married to Dora Spenlow who is not long for this world. Will David ever find stability and happiness? And what of his wife? Dickens proves to be a master in creating an autobiographical work that is a captivating page-turner.
Produced by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Garret Giuliano
©2021 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) 2021 Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller ‘Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney’ and ‘Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison’. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. In addition, Giuliano is an occasional lecturer at Northwestern University. He is also a well-known movie actor in such films as ‘Mechanic Resurrection and the ‘Scorpion King’ series, among many. Geoffrey is a near lifelong student of Bhakti (Devotional) Yoga and an ardent animal rights advocate. He makes his home with his son Eden in Bangkok and Vrndavana, and Jaipur India

David Copperfield is a novel by Charles Dickens and was published in 1850. The story is told in the first person by David Copperfield. Now he is a grown man and tells us the story of his youth and his journey of self-discovery. He had an unhappy childhood, and his father died before he was born. We read his story until his middle-age when he becomes a successful novelist. His journey is full of adventures and numerous friends and enemies.
Charles Dickens’ prose is Full of tragedy and comedy in equal measure. David Copperfield is considered to be an autobiography. Dickens related early personal experiences that had meant much to him – like his work in a factory as a child, his schooling and his journey towards a successful writer.
This version of the book is translated by Mohsen Soleimani to Persian (Farsi) and narrated by Nor-Al-Din Djavadian. The Persian version of David Copperfield’s audiobook is published by Maktub worldwide.

David Copperfield is the quintessential novel by England’s most beloved novelist. Based in part on Dickens’s own life, it is the story of a young man’s journey from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist. Among its gloriously vivid cast of characters, he encounters his tyrannical stepfather, Mr. Murdstone; his formidable aunt, Betsey Trotwood; the eternally humble yet treacherous Uriah Heep; the frivolous, enchanting Dora; and one of literature’s great comic creations, the magnificently impecunious Mr. Micawber-a character resembling Dickens’s own father.
In David Copperfield-the novel he described as his “favorite child”-Dickens drew revealingly on his own experiences to create one of his most exuberant and enduringly popular works, filled with tragedy and comedy in equal measure.

Lorsqu’en 1850 il publie David Copperfield, Charles Dickens offre à ses lecteurs le premier roman qu’il ait écrit à la première personne, et, derrière l’histoire de son jeune héros, c’est aussi parfois la sienne qu’on peut lire. Mais ce que dessinent surtout les douloureuses premières années, le dur apprentissage de la vie dans une fabrique, puis la fuite et l’errance picaresque du jeune Copperfield, c’est un roman de formation où le personnage se fait son propre biographe. Il arrive alors qu’on ne sache pas si le réel évoqué est celui que l’enfant vécut au présent ou celui que l’adulte revisite au passé. Car, d’épreuve en épreuve, c’est une nouvelle image de soi que le narrateur peu à peu reconstruit, avant de devenir lui-même, à la fin du livre, un écrivain semblable à celui qui, dès le début, a pris la plume pour raconter sa vie – et nous offrir ce qui est encore aujourd’hui le plus grand roman anglais du XIXe siècle. Edition de Laurent Bury et Jean-Pierre Naugrette.

Paul Dombey is a wealthy shipping merchant and formidable patriarch who runs his family with the same cold calculation he applies to his business.

Evaluating his children’s worth by what he thinks they can add to his bottom line, he dotes on the son he hopes to make his heir, while neglecting his affectionate elder daughter. But through his pride and selfishness, Dombey is sowing the seeds of his own destruction. Once his heart is broken, can it finally be redeemed?

A sensitive family drama infused with social and moral commentary, Dombey and Son combines grim psychological realism with Dickens’ faith in the redemptive power of love.

Charles Dickens the author of Dombey and Son, originally wrote the book in installments which were published from October 1846 to April 1848 under the title Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation.
The story centers around Paul Dombey, the stern owner of the Firm. He is totally immersed in having his newly born son continue the business, and entirely neglects his daughter Florence. Tragedy occurs, and Florence’s plight worsens. As the years go by, Mr. Dombey sees to it that the man she loves, his employee, is sent far away. Mr Dombey remarries, but his marriage is eventually destroyed, his fortune gone, he becomes destitute. Finally he accepts help from his daughter, and life changes for him. Many wonderful characters interweave the tale, as in all Dickens literary masterpieces.
Produced by Devin Lawerence
Edited by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Giuliano
Music By AudioNautix With Their Kind Permission
©2020 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney and Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken-word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. He is also a well known movie actor.

El guardavías (The Signal-Man) es un relato de terror escrito por Charles Dickens y publicado en diciembre de 1866 en la revista literaria All the Year Round, dirigida y fundada por Dickens. El relato mezcla terror y elegancia y demuestra que pueden ir de la mano. Se trata de un cuento de terror clásico, sin variantes en la trama, aunque el verdadero talento del autor es el contraste que nos crea con la tranquilidad de pausas y llanos apacibles, y luego nos sacude con el horror psicológico que atormenta a sus personajes protagonistas. Aunque Dickens está considerado como un escritor realista, sus obras están plagadas de entes fantasmales y macabros, así como desarrolladas en ambientes sobrenaturales.
Está ambientado en el portal del túnel de Clayton, West Sussex, Inglaterra y fue inspirado por dos accidentes de trenes: el primero, un choque en este túnel, el 25 de agosto de 1861;1​ el segundo, un descarrilamiento en Staplehurst de un tren donde viajaba el propio Dickens, el 9 de junio de 1865.
Este audiolibro cuenta, además de la narración, con diferentes efectos de sonido y canciones, utilizando una edición cuidada, llena de estímulos, para introducirte en esta fascinante historia de la manera más original, terrorífica y cautivadora posible.

El misterio de Edwin Drood es la decimoquinta y ultima novela del escritor britanico Charles Dickens. Quedo inconclusa debido a su muerte subita, por tanto la identidad del asesino sigue siendo objeto de debate, en lo que se designa hoy dia como, literatura droodiana>> (Droodian literature), una larga serie de investigaciones, hipotesis, soluciones y finales de todo genero alrededor de los posibles finales. El ultimo libro de Dickens, que sin duda es una novela policiaca, puede tambien ser leido como la < ... Read more

Experiencing a story read out loud is one of the oldest forms of entertainment there is. Fireside Reading is a way to slow down, reconnect with the timeless wisdom of great books and rediscover the simple pleasure of being read to. Join Gildart Jackson in front of a cozy fire as he reads A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens to you and your family.

Many people are put off by the sheer length of Charles Dickens’ novels. Great Expectations is one of the most accessible of his works. If you’ve been unwilling to try Dickens before, this is the place to start! In what may be Dickens’s best novel, humble, orphaned Pip is apprenticed to the dirty work of the forge but dares to dream of becoming a gentleman – and one day, under sudden and enigmatic circumstances, he finds himself in possession of “great expectations.” In this gripping tale of crime and guilt, revenge and reward, the compelling characters include Magwitch, the fearful and fearsome convict; Estella, whose beauty is excelled only by her haughtiness; and the embittered Miss Havisham, an eccentric jilted bride

One of the most revered works in English literature, Great Expectations traces the coming-of-age of a young orphan, Pip, from a boy of shallow aspirations into a man of maturity. From the chilling opening confrontation with an escaped convict to the grand but eerily disheveled estate of bitter old Miss Havisham, all is not what it seems in Dickens’ dark tale of false illusions and thwarted desire.

Raised by a humble blacksmith, Pip is recruited by the wealthy Miss Havisham to be a companion to her ward, the cold but beautiful Estella. There, Pip learns to despise his rough origins as Estella torments him about his low prospects. When Pip is informed that an unknown benefactor expects to make him his heir, he sets off to London to realize his “great expectations.” But true gentleman stature, he will find, is a matter of character, not fortune.

Great Expectations, recognized as Charles Dickens’ finest novel, is told by Pip, an orphan who lives with his sister and her husband, the village blacksmith. The young boy’s life is changed forever when he meets and aids an escaped convict who wanders into his yard. Years later, Pip is sent to live with the decaying, bitter Miss Havisham and falls in love with her ward, the elegant and elusive Estella. A young man of modest means, Pip nevertheless aims to become a gentleman in order to win Estella’s heart and an endowment from an anonymous benefactor suddenly places his intentions within reach. But capricious fate will lead him through further adversity and unexpected revelations in the pursuit of his dreams.

Great Expectations charts the progress of Pip from childhood through often painful experiences to adulthood, as he moves from the Kent marshes to busy, commercial London. He encounters along the way a variety of extraordinary characters ranging from Magwitch, the escaped convict, to Miss Havisham, locked up with her unhappy past and living with her ward, the arrogant, beautiful Estella. Pip must discover his true self, and his own set of values and priorities. Whether such values allow one to prosper in the complex world of early Victorian England is the major question posed by Great Expectations, one of Dickens’s most fascinating and disturbing novels.

Pip, a poor orphan being raised by a cruel sister, does not have much in the way of great expectations—until he is inexplicably elevated to wealth by an anonymous benefactor. Full of unforgettable characters—including a terrifying convict named Magwitch, the eccentric Miss Havisham, and her beautiful but manipulative niece, Estella, Great Expectations is a tale of intrigue, unattainable love, and all of the happiness money can’t buy. “Great Expectations has the most wonderful and most perfectly worked-out plot for a novel in the English language,” according to John Irving, and J. Hillis Miller declares, “Great Expectations is the most unified and concentrated expression of Dickens’s abiding sense of the world, and Pip might be called the archetypal Dickens hero.”

The orphan Pip’s terrifying encounter with an escaped convict on the Kent marshes, and his mysterious summons to the house of Miss Havisham and her cold, beautiful ward Estella, form the prelude to his “great expectations.” How Pip comes into a fortune, what he does with it, and what he discovers through his secret benefactor are the ingredients of his struggle for moral redemption.

Considered by many to be Charles Dickens’s finest novel, Great Expectations traces the growth of the book’s narrator, the orphan Philip Pirrip (Pip), from a boy of shallow dreams to a man with depth of character. From its famous dramatic opening on the bleak Kentish marshes, the story abounds with some of Dickens’s most memorable characters. Among them are the kindly blacksmith Joe Gargery, the mysterious convict Abel Magwitch, the eccentric Miss Havisham and her beautiful ward Estella, Pip’s good-hearted roommate Herbert Pocket, and the pompous Pumblechook. As Pip unravels the truth behind his own “great expectations” in his quest to become a gentleman, the mysteries of the past and the convolutions of fate through a series of thrilling adventures serve to steer him toward maturity and his most important discovery of all-the truth about himself.

Bestselling novelist and award-winning audiobook narrator Alison Larkin changes the gender of Dicken’s most famous character in this dazzling new recording of Great Expectations.

It’s the same thrilling story of youthful innocence, unexpected escape from cruel poverty, an old woman jilted at the altar, and a mysterious financial gift that transforms the life of a young person. But one thing has changed. In this version, Pip is a woman.

In this world it is completely normal for a girl to learn to read and kiss another girl and be able to walk into a tavern without being molested or start a promising career thanks to a mysterious financial donation.

It’s an irresistible question. If gender had been simply irrelevant in the 19th century where would we all be now?
“A novel rich in imagination, detail, and surprises requires a narrator who can embrace every element of the story — Alison Larkin is that narrator..”
— AUDIOFILE MAGAZINE

“Alison Larkin is hugely entertaining.” THE TIMES

11-year-old actor Eden Giuliano presents a brand new line of exciting children’s stories from Icon!

Here is perhaps Charles Dickens’ most beloved story, Philip Pirrip, known as “Pip”, narrates his own incredible journey, from the hindsight of 50 years. Pip grows up with his older sister after losing his parents as a boy. His sister, a tough woman, rules Pip and her husband Joe with an iron fist. While playing in the marshes, Pip is accosted by an escaped criminal whom he decides to help by stealing food from his own home. The convict however, is soon caught and returned to prison. Miss Havisham, an eccentric recluse, sends for Pip to come to her house to play with Estella, a haughty girl about his age. Although Pip is ashamed as a poor uneducated boy, he is fascinated by Estella. A few years later, he becomes apprenticed to Joe, a blacksmith, but dreams of one day becoming rich and clever and marrying Estella. A very odd stranger, Mr. Jaggers, arrives to inform him that he has come into a handsome property, and will be removed from his present home to be brought up as a gentleman. The benefactor is kept secret, but Pip is sure it must be Miss Havisham. In London, Pip acquires a tutor, grand new clothes and the uptown lifestyle he always wanted. Things, however, are complicated as a gentleman in society, and he finds himself very unhappy, as Estella remains indifferent to him, deeply involved with someone else. Pip begins overspending his generous allowance, and worse, spurns old friends.

We know you will enjoy this very special series from Icon Audio Arts hosted by young Eden Giuliano!

Host Eden Garret Giuliano in London
Series producer Avalon Giuliano in New York
Produced by Alex Franchi in Milan and Geoffrey Giuliano in Delhi
Edited and mixed by Macc Kay in Bangkok
Special thanks to Brandon Stickney & Sanjay Khemani

DEDICATED TO VRNDA DEVI

Music by Audio Nautix
©2019 Icon Audio Arts (P)2019 Icon Audio Arts

Whimsy, imagination, and sentiment have been banned in the Gradgrinds’ upper-class household, but in Coketown, whose working class inhabitants fight for their very survival, the ban becomes a merciless creed. There, all that matters are the grinding wheels of production. Hard Times reflects a harsh world of grueling labor and pitiless relationships. But it is also a story of hope, of something elemental in the human spirit that rises above its bleak surroundings.

Originally written for Dickens’ weekly magazine, Household Words, this short novel follows the fate of Sissy Jupe, a warm-hearted circus child, and the family that adopts her. Deserted by her ailing father, Sissy is taken into the cold household of the Gradgrind family, which operates a school. The “eminently practical” Thomas Gradgrind believes only in facts and figures and has raised his children accordingly, thoroughly suppressing the imaginative sides of their nature. They grow up in ignorance of love and affection, of beauty and culture, or of empathy for others, and the consequences are devastating. Only after numerous crises does Thomas realize that his principles have corrupted their lives.

Dickens’ satirical exposé of the Industrial Revolution condemns the utilitarianism that exploited the bodies, minds, and souls of the vulnerable labor class.

“Do the wise thing and the kind thing too, and make the best of us and not the worst.”
“Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.”
― Charles Dickens, Hard Times
Hard Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirizes the social and economic conditions of the era.
Hard Times is unusual in several ways. It is by far the shortest of Dickens’s novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead, the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town.
The story concerns one Thomas Gradgrind, a “fanatic of the demonstrable fact,” who raises his children, Tom and Louisa, in a stifling and arid atmosphere of grim practicality. A classic audiobook publishing event.
Produced by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Garret Giuliano
©2021 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) 2021 Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller ‘Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney’ and ‘Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison’. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. In addition, Giuliano is an occasional lecturer at Northwestern University.

Red brick, machinery, and smoke-darkened chimneys. Reason, facts, and statistics. This is the world of Coketown, the depressed mill town that is the setting for one of Charles Dickens’s most powerful and unforgettable novels.
The highest priority for Thomas Gradgrind, head of the Gradgrind model day school, is his version of education-feeding the mind while starving the soul and spirit. Inflexible and unyielding, he places conformity above curiosity and sense over sentiment…only to find himself betrayed by the very standards that govern his own unhappy life.
Hard Times is Dickens’s scathing portrait of Victorian industrial society and its misapplied utilitarian philosophy. And Thomas Gradgrind is one of his most richly dimensional, memorable characters. Filled with the details and wonders of small-town life, Hard Times is also a daring novel of ideas-and ultimately a celebration of love, hope, and the limitless possibilities of the imagination.

Little Amy Dorrit was born in debtor’s prison, where her father, an aristocrat by birth, has been an inmate for the past twenty years.

Though her father is too proud to acknowledge their reduced status, Amy secretly works as a seamstress to support her family. In this way she meets and befriends Arthur, her employer’s son, who wants to help.

When Arthur uncovers an unknown inheritance due to Mr. Dorrit, the family is finally freed from prison. Newly wealthy, they travel to Italy, where Mr. Dorrit instructs his children to sever old connections and learn the ways of the upper class. But leaving their past behind proves not to be so easy.

Meanwhile, their benefactor, Arthur, falls on hard times himself when he becomes the victim of a gigantic financial fraud. When he next meets Little Dorrit, their places are reversed: Arthur is imprisoned in the Marshalsea, too ashamed of his reduced status to declare his love. But to Little Dorrit, love has always transcended class.

A masterly evocation of the state and psychology of imprisonment, Little Dorrit is one of the supreme works of Dickens’ maturity.

One of Charles Dickens’s most personally resonant novels, Little Dorrit speaks across the centuries to the modern audience. Its depiction of shady financiers and banking collapses seems uncannily topical, as does Dickens’s compassionate admiration for Amy Dorrit, the “child of the Marshalsea,” as she struggles to hold her family together in the face of neglect, irresponsibility, and ruin. Intricate in its plotting, the novel also satirizes the cumbersome machinery of government. For Dickens, Little Dorrit marked a return to some of the most harrowing scenes of his childhood, with its graphic depiction of the trauma of the debtors’ prison and its portrait of a world ignored by society. The novel explores not only the literal prison but also the figurative jails that characters build for themselves.

This highly entertaining audio dramatization of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol features a star-studded cast that includes John de Lancie, Daniel Roebuck, Jim O’Rear, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn, Tiffany LaBarbera, Virginia Hey, Kyle Hebert, and Reggie Bannister. It’s eighty minutes of fun for the whole family!

Wealthy and old, Martin Chuzzlewit Sr. is surrounded by greedy relatives hoping to obtain a portion of his estate upon his death. His two descendants, Martin Jr. and Jonas, have been born and bred in the same heritage of selfishness, the Chuzzlewit tradition.

Set partly in America, of which Dickens offers a searing satire, this novel follows and contrasts the opposing fates of Martin and Jonas. While one achieves worldly success and, eventually, moral redemption, the other sinks deeper into the darkness–and pays the ultimate price.

This powerful black comedy is a tale of hypocrisy, greed, and blackmail, and it introduces the most famous of Dickens’ grotesques: Mrs. Gamp.

The most gorgeously theatrical of all Dickens’ novels, Nicholas Nickleby follows the delightful adventures of a hearty young hero in nineteenth-century England. Nicholas, a gentleman’s son fallen upon hard times, must set out to make his way in the world. His journey is accompanied by some of the most swaggering scoundrels and unforgettable eccentrics in Dickens’ pantheon.

From the dungeon-like Yorkshire boys’ boarding school run by the cruel Wackford Squeers to the high-spirited stage of Vincent Crummles’ extraordinary acting troupe, Nicholas Nickleby is a triumph of the imagination, bursting with color, humor, and poignant social commentary.

Originally published in the 1853 Christmas edition of Dickens’ journal Household Words, Nobody’s Story uses the differences between the Big Wig family and the Nobody family to call attention to class-based inequity. This version of Nobody’s Story is part of Dreamscape’s The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens.

Oliver Twist’s famous cry of the heart – “Please, sir, I want some more” – has resounded with generations of readers of all ages. The author poured his own youthful experience of Victorian London’s unspeakable squalor into this realistic depiction of a spirited young innocent’s unwilling but inevitable recruitment into a scabrous gang of thieves. Masterminded by the loathsome Fagin, the underworld crew features some of Dickens’s most memorable characters, including the vicious Bill Sikes, gentle Nancy, and the juvenile pickpocket known as the Artful Dodger.

One of Dickens’ most popular novels, Oliver Twist tells the story of a young workhouse orphan who escapes into the mean backstreets of Victorian London. There, he is thrust into a den of thieves where some of Dickens’ most depraved villains preside: the incorrigible Artful Dodger, the barbarous bully Bill Sikes, and the terrible Fagin, whose knavery threatens to send them all to the gallows. A novel with autobiographical overtones, this was the first of Dickens’ works to realistically portray London’s impoverished underworld and to illustrate his belief that poverty leads to crime. At the heart of the drama, however, is Oliver, the orphan whose unsullied goodness leads him to salvation, and who represents Dickens’ belief in the principle of good triumphing at last.

One of Dickens’ most popular novels, Oliver Twist tells the story of a young workhouse orphan who escapes into the mean backstreets of Victorian London. There, he is thrust into a den of thieves where some of Dickens’ most depraved villains preside: the incorrigible Artful Dodger, the barbarous bully Bill Sikes, and the terrible Fagin, whose knavery threatens to send them all to the gallows. A novel with autobiographical overtones, this was the first of Dickens’ works to realistically portray London’s impoverished underworld and to illustrate his belief that poverty leads to crime. At the heart of the drama, however, is Oliver, the orphan whose unsullied goodness leads him to salvation, and who represents Dickens’ belief in the principle of good triumphing at last.

Born in a workhouse and sold into an apprenticeship with an undertaker, young orphan Oliver Twist escapes and travels through London. While on his adventure, he meets Jack Dawkins, a member of a gang of juvenile pickpockets led by the elderly criminal Fagin. Caught in a life of immorality, Oliver finds himself taken away by a kind gentleman who leads him to a life he had never anticipated for himself.

Dickens’s classic morality tale of a starving orphan caught between opposing forces of good and evil is a powerful indictment of Victorian England’s Poor Laws. Filled with dark humor and an unforgettable cast of characters Oliver Twist, Fagin, Nancy, Bill Sykes, and the Artful Dodger, to name a few Dickens’s second novel is a compelling social satire that has remained popular since it was first serialized in 1837-39.

Mysterious, dark and full of excitement, Oliver Twist takes readers on a compelling journey through the crime-haunted alleys of Victorian London.

It’s heart-rending story of an innocent boy’s struggle for survival is peopled by an unforgettable cast of characters – villainous Fagin, brutal Bill Sykes and the irrepressible Artful Dodger.

This vivid retelling for children is remarkably faithful to Charles Dickens’ masterpiece while Tony Robinson’s narration brilliantly evokes the atmosphere of 1830s London.

Sir Tony Robinson is an English actor – best known as Baldrick in the BBC television series Blackadder – comedian, author, presenter and political activist who is no stranger to narrating audiobooks, including his own children’s series.

© 1839; 1999 Charles Dickens; Naia Bray-Moffatt © 2000 DK Audio

One of Charles Dickens’s most popular novels, Oliver Twist is the story of a young orphan who dares to say, “Please, sir, I want some more.” After escaping from the dark and dismal workhouse where he was born, Oliver finds himself on the mean streets of Victorian-era London and is unwittingly recruited into a scabrous gang of scheming urchins. In this band of petty thieves, Oliver encounters the extraordinary and vibrant characters who have captured audiences’ imaginations for more than 150 years: the loathsome Fagin, the beautiful and tragic Nancy, the crafty Artful Dodger, and the terrifying Bill Sikes, perhaps one of the greatest villains of all time.
Rife with Dickens’s disturbing descriptions of street life, the novel is buoyed by the purity of the orphan Oliver. Though he is treated with cruelty and surrounded by coarseness for most of his life, his pious innocence leads him at last to salvation-and the shocking discovery of his true identity.

This sinister masterpiece was Dickens’ last completed novel and perhaps his ultimate vision of a dark, macabre London and the corrupting power of money. Opening with a father and daughter scavenging for corpses on the Thames, this chilling tale unfolds around drownings, disguises and doubles, violence, murder, and triumphant love.

Young John Harmon, presumed killed on his return home to England, is very much alive. The heir to a dust merchant’s fortune, he goes to work under an assumed name for his father’s current heirs, the amiable, elderly Boffins—who are about to be blackmailed by the unscrupulous one-legged Wegg.

So begins the intrigue in a novel that is quintessentially Dickensian in flavor—in its grotesque caricatures, its rich symbolism, and in the astonishing realism of its heroine, Bella Wilfer, one of Dickens’ most splendid female characters.

Our Mutual Friend, the last novel completed by Charles Dickens, has many plots, twists and turns, from the murky river Thames to the gold and crystal on the tables of ‘Society’. A tale of murder, treachery, jealousy and love, takes us first to a rowing boat on the Thames, where the Hexhams have found a body in the water and are bringing it to shore. We attend the Boffins, a poor naïve couple, who unexpectedly have just become wealthy, after their employer dies and names them in his will. Silas Wegg becomes their ‘literary man’ and John Rokesmith, a mysterious man, becomes their secretary. We meet the Veneerings, new to society, who hold elaborate dinner parties for ‘dear friends’ they’ve never met. Bella and Lizzie, each from different walks of life, find love from unexpected quarters. The Lammles, a society couple, become match makers for their own ulterior motives. Two ne’er do well lawyers, Mortimer Lightwood and Eugene Wrayburn, find themselves caught up in intrigue, and learn how dangerous their work can be. Dickens weaves together some of his most colorful and oft times hilarious characters so cleverly, that even up to the end of the story, surprises are afoot
Produced by Devin Lawerence
Edited by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Giuliano
Music By AudioNautix With Their Kind Permission
©2020 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney and Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken-word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. He is also a well known movie actor.

Charles Dickens created some of the world’s most memorable fictional characters. Widely regarded as the greatest writer of the Victorian period, his novels and short stories continue to be widely popular today. One of his lesser known works, “Prince Bull” is the story of a powerful prince named Bull; his lovely wife called Fair Freedom; and Tape, his wicked fairy godmother. Though written in fairy tale form, the story is a satirical commentary on Crimean War.

Proceeds from sale of this title go to Reach Out and Read, an innovative literacy advocacy organization.

Here is a heartwarming collection classic, short Christmas stories from Charles Dickens, who, one may easily argue, was the greatest Christmas storyteller to date. In this season, may we do as Dickens’ asked: “Welcome, everything! Welcome, alike what has been, and what never was, and what we hope may be, to your shelter underneath the holly, to your places round the Christmas fire, where what is sits open-hearted!” Happy Holidays!
Produced by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Garret Giuliano
©2021 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) 2021 Eden Garret Giuliano
Here is a heartwarming collection classic, short Christmas stories from Charles Dickens, who, one may easily argue, was the greatest Christmas storyteller to date. In this season, may we do as Dickens’ asked: “Welcome, everything! Welcome, alike what has been, and what never was, and what we hope may be, to your shelter underneath the holly, to your places round the Christmas fire, where what is sits open-hearted!” Happy Holidays!
Produced by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Garret Giuliano
©2021 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) 2021 Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller ‘Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney’ and ‘Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison’. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. In addition, Giuliano is an occasional lecturer at Northwestern University. He is also a well-known movie actor in such films as ‘Mechanic Resurrection and the ‘Scorpion King’ series, among many. Geoffrey is a near lifelong student of Bhakti (Devotional) Yoga and an ardent animal rights advocate. He makes his home with his son Eden in Bangkok and Vrndavana, and Jaipur India

While “The Battle of Life” is one of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Books – his annual release of a story just before Christmas – this one breaks the tradition by not being concerned with Christmas. Rather, its subtitle, “A Love Story”, reveals more of the plot.
The major events of this book take place on land that once was a battleground. That is just a backdrop for Dickens’ idea of the real battle of life – finding and winning the right partner, so that life will go on to the next generation. The family that lives there is rather confused in its affections and intentions regarding who should end up with whom. We are thrust into the fight to make things work out, and, happily for a Christmas book, Dickens leads us on to a happy ending.
Produced by Devin Lawerence
Edited by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Giuliano
Music By AudioNautix With Their Kind Permission
©2020 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney and Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken-word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. He is also a well known movie actor.

The Battle of Life is an 1846 novel by Charles Dickens. It is the fourth of his five “Christmas Books”, coming after The Cricket on the Hearth and followed by The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain.
The setting is an English village that stands on the site of an historic battle. Some characters refer to the battle as a metaphor for the struggles of life, hence the title.
Battle is the only one of the five Christmas Books that has no supernatural or explicitly religious elements. The story bears some resemblance to The Cricket on the Hearth in two respects: it has a non-urban setting, and it is resolved with a romantic twist. It is even less of a social novel than is Cricket. As is typical with Dickens, the ending is a happy one.
It is one of Dickens’s lesser-known works and has never attained any high level of popularity – a trait it shares with The Haunted Man, in contrast to the other of his Christmas Books
Produced by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Garret Giuliano
©2021 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) 2021 Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller ‘Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney’ and ‘Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison’. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken word albums and documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. In addition, Giuliano is an occasional lecturer at Northwestern University. He is also a well-known movie actor in such films as ‘Squid Game’, ‘Mechanic Resurrection’, ‘Hard Target 2’ and the ‘Scorpion King’ series, among many. Geoffrey is a near lifelong devotee of Sri Krsna and an ardent animal rights advocate. He makes his home in Bangkok, Vrndavana, and Jaipur India with his son Eden Garret Giuliano

Originally published in the 1852 Christmas edition of Dickens’ journal Household Words, The Child’s Story is the account of a man’s life from childhood to the present as told to his grandson in the form of a fairytale about a traveler and the people he meets. This version of The Child’s Story is part of Dreamscape’s The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens.

This delightful collection of children’s stories is perfect listening for the whole family. Featured are four beloved stories to entice your imagination, including A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The Bell by Hans Christian Andersen, and Snow White by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

Each story is performed by a full cast of voice actors with sound effects and music.

In the 1840s Charles Dickens wrote 5 short stories with strong social and moral messages. The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rand an Old Year Out and a New Year In, is the second of these stories, whose predecessor was the famous A Christmas Carol. The Chimes focuses on Trotty, a poor elderly messenger who is filled with gloom over reports of crime and immorality in the newspapers. After losing faith in the society, Trotty follows a call to the church bell tower where he encounters Goblins that teach him, and listeners, lessons in the form of visions about the mistreatment of the lower class in society. This story of social awakening inspires listeners to treat everyone with fair kindness.

The second in his series of “Christmas books,” after A Christmas Carol. The Chimes is a lesser known, but no less powerful story by Charles Dickens of christmastime and the plight of the poor. Trotty Veck is a poor porter and father, who despairing of the poors lot, is shown a terrifying vision by the “Ghosts of the Chimes” of a world without him.
Narrated by Michael Ward.

The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, commonly referred to as The Chimes, is a novella written by Charles Dickens first published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol. It is the second in his series of “Christmas books,” five novellas with strong social and moral messages he published during the 1840s. In addition to A Christmas Carol and The Chimes, the Christmas books include The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain (1848)
Produced by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Garret Giuliano
©2021 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) 2021 Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller ‘Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney’ and ‘Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison’. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken word albums and documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. In addition, Giuliano is an occasional lecturer at Northwestern University. He is also a well-known movie actor in such films as ‘Squid Game’, ‘Mechanic Resurrection’, ‘Hard Target 2’ and the ‘Scorpion King’ series, among many. Geoffrey is a near lifelong devotee of Sri Krsna and an ardent animal rights advocate. He makes his home in Bangkok, Vrndavana, and Jaipur India with his son Eden Garret Giuliano

No writer is more identified with the modern idea of Christmas than Charles Dickens. In some ways, Dickens helped define the holiday that we now celebrate by immortalizing it as a time of warmth and sharing, with an emphasis on family and friends.

Dickens wrote all the stories presented here during the 1850s as contributions to the special Christmas issues of Household Words, the weekly magazine he founded and edited. Included are fictional sketches verging on the autobiographical, recollections of childhood, reflections on past holidays and old friends, as well as tales of misunderstandings and lost opportunities. They reaffirm the virtue of nurturing our traditions and offer a master storyteller’s vision of the real meaning of Christmas.

Everybody knows A Christmas Carol, but the prolific Charles Dickens wrote several other holiday tales. Here, Dreamscape Media has compiled a collection of Dickens’ classic Christmas stories. Disc one includes: A Christmas Tree; What Christmas is as We Grow Older. Disc two contains: What Christmas is as We Grow Older (continued); The Poor Relation’s Story; The Child’s Story; The Schoolboy’s Story; Nobody’s Story.

Charles Dickens created some of the world’s best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognized him as a literary genius. After the success of A Christmas Carol in 1843 Dickens continued the series throughout the 1840s, maintaining what he called “the Carol philosophy” to “strike a sledgehammer blow” for the poor, uneducated, and repressed. In typical fashion he drove his message home with a mixture of humor and good cheer. Although subsequent Christmas books sold well at the time of their initial release, they have not enjoyed the staying power of A Christmas Carol. The Christmas books, particularly The Chimes, the Cricket, and the Carol, were the centerpiece of Dickens’ public reading tours in the 1850s and 60s with A Christmas Carol far and away the most popular with audiences. Dickens discontinued the Christmas books after The Haunted Man, devoting his time to the publication of weekly magazines, Household Words (1850-1858) and All the Year Round (1859-1867), in which he included annual Christmas stories. Henceforth Dickens was forever linked with the celebration of Christmas. We present them here as a special Icon classic five audiobook collection.
Copyright Eden Garret Giuliano, 2021

In the 1840s Charles Dickens wrote 5 short stories with strong social and moral messages. The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home, is the third of these stories. Following the home life of John Peerybingle, the story introduces the many people in John’s family and life along with a cricket that acts as the guardian angel of the family. Like its predecessors, this story also contains heavy social and moral implications. However it differs from A Christmas Carol and The Chimes, in that its main theme focuses on actions that affect the family rather than action affecting society as a whole.

The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home is a novella by Charles Dickens, published by Bradbury and Evans, and released 20 December 1845 .
A homely tale about stout Parcel Carrier John Peerybingle, his small young wife Dot, Caleb Plummer and his blind Daughter Bertha, their employer the gruff old Mr Tackleton and his young bride to be and what portentous consequences the arrival of mysterious old man means for them all. Narrated by Michael Ward.

The Cricket on the Heart is a novella by Charles Dickens, published by Bradbury and Evans, and released 20 December 1845. Dickens began writing the book in October 1845 and finished it by December. Like all of Dickens’s Christmas books, it was published in book form, not as a serial.
Dickens described the novel as “quiet and domestic innocent and pretty.” It is subdivided into chapters called “Chirps”, similar to the “Quarters” of The Chimes or the “Staves” of A Christmas Carol. It is the third of Dickens’s five Christmas books, preceded by A Christmas Carol (1843) and The Chimes (1844), and followed by The Battle of Life (1846) and The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain (1848).
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
Produced by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Garret Giuliano
©2021 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) 2021 Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller ‘Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney’ and ‘Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison’. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken word albums and documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. In addition, Giuliano is an occasional lecturer at Northwestern University. He is also a well-known movie actor in such films as ‘Squid Game’, ‘Mechanic Resurrection’, ‘Hard Target 2’ and the ‘Scorpion King’ series, among many. Geoffrey is a near lifelong devotee of Sri Krsna and an ardent animal rights advocate. He makes his home in Bangkok, Vrndavana, and Jaipur India with his son Eden Garret Giuliano

Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol–A Ghost Story of Christmas in Five Staves when he was 31; the first edition was published on 19th December 1843 and had sold out just four days later and by the end of 1844, there were already 13 reprints. Now with numerous adaptations for film, television, radio, stage, and indeed, audiobooks, A Christmas Carol has, for many, become an essential part of Christmas!

Raconteurs Audio has created this audio anthology to include Dickens’ two Christmas novellas, The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth, as well as a collection of his lesser known short stories with a Christmas theme.

A Christmas Carol

Stave 1 – Marley’s Ghost read by Liam GerrardStave 2 – The First of Three Spirits read by Tim BruceStave 3 – The Second of Three Spirits read by James GilliesStave 4 – The Last of the Spirits read by Greg WaglandStave 5 – The End of It read by Malk Williams

Music

Stave 1 – God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – English TraditionalStave 2 – The Three Kings – Peter CorneliusStave 3 – Gabriel’s Message – Basque NoelStave 4 – A Coventry Carol – English TraditionalStave 5 – This Is the Truth – English TraditionalFinale – In Dulci Jubilo – German Traditional

Original music arranged and produced by Kelvin Towse for this audiobook production.

Festive Tales

The Haunted House read by Greg WaglandA Christmas Tree read by Nigel PattersonThe Chimes read by James GilliesThe Christmas Goblin read by Liam GerrardThe Cricket on the Hearth read by Helen LloydNobody’s Story read by Malk WilliamsA Child’s Dream of a Star read by Tim BruceWhat Christmas Is as We Grow Older read by James Gillies

These stories originally published between 1843 and 1871 are in the public domain. The traditional music is also in the public domain.

A charming novella by Charles Dickens first published in 1848. It is the fifth and last of Dickens’s Christmas novellas. The story is more about the spirit of the holidays than about the holidays themselves, harking back to the first in the series, A Christmas Carol. The tale centres on a Professor Redlaw and those close to him.
Produced by Devin Lawrence in Vrindavana
Production executive Avalon Giuliano in London
ICON Intern Eden Giuliano in Delhi
Music By AudioNautix With Their Kind Permission
©2020 Icon Audio Arts (P) 2020 Icon Audio Arts LLC

The fifth and last of Dickens’s Christmas novellas; Redlaw is a teacher of chemistry who often broods over wrongs done him and grief from his past.
He is haunted by a spirit, a phantom twin and “an awful likeness of himself” This spectre appears and proposes to Redlaw that he can allow him to “forget the sorrow, wrong, and trouble you have known…to cancel their remembrance…” Redlaw agrees.
As a consequence of the ghost’s intervention, Redlaw is without memories of the painful incidents from his past. He experiences a universal anger that he cannot explain. His bitterness spreads to all around him, and as he perceives the horror he is causing and beseeches the ghost for deliverance.
This Christmas tale by Dickens is more about the spirit of the holidays than about the holidays themselves, harking back to the first in the series, A Christmas Carol.
Narrated by Michael Ward

The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-Time (better known as The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain is a novella by Charles Dickens first published in 1848. It is the fifth and last of Dickens’s Christmas novellas. The story is more about the spirit of Christmas than about the holiday itself, harking back to the first in the series, A Christmas Carol.
Produced by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Garret Giuliano
©2021 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) 2021 Eden Garret Giuliano
Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller ‘Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney’ and ‘Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison’. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken word albums and documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. In addition, Giuliano is an occasional lecturer at Northwestern University. He is also a well-known movie actor in such films as ‘Squid Game’, ‘Mechanic Resurrection’, ‘Hard Target 2’ and the ‘Scorpion King’ series, among many. Geoffrey is a near lifelong devotee of Sri Krsna and an ardent animal rights advocate. He makes his home in Bangkok, Vrndavana, and Jaipur India with his son Eden Garret Giuliano

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby is closely modelled on the eighteenth-century novels that Charles Dickens loved as a child, such as Robinson Crusoe, in which the fortunes of a hero shape the plot. The likeable young Nicholas, left penniless on the death of his father, sets off in search of better prospects. His meandering route to happiness includes work as a teacher at Dotheboys Hall, where the brutal Wackford Squeers ill-treats his impoverished pupils, and a spell as an actor with the absurdly melodramatic Crummles troupe.
Nicholas’s many adventures give Dickens the freedom to follow the eccentricities of a vivid gallery of characters, exploring themes of class, love, and self-awareness with exuberant comedy and biting satire.

Nicholas Nickleby is a young Devonshire man of nineteen, handsome and hot headed, devoted to his sister Kate and his parents. Following the death of Nicholas’s father, they find themselves penniless, and travel to London to seek help from his uncle, Ralph Nickleby, a heartless, cunning rogue. He grudgingly finds employment for Nicholas in Dotheby Hall, a school in Yorkshire run by the brutal Mr. and Mrs. Wackford Squeers. Appalled at the condition and treatment of the school children, Nicholas rebels, escaping with Smike, a young man/child who has become devoted to him.
Nicholas, in search of employment, first tutors children of the Kenwigs family. Later he meets the flamboyant Mr.Vincent Crummles, and along with Smike, joins his theatrical troupe, with a band of hilarious actors. Among his many tasks, he creates posters, adapts scripts and acts in many productions.
In the course of his many adventures, Nicholas falls in love, his sister Kate falls in love, and even the often dotty Mrs. Nickleby is courted by a strange man who flings vegetables to her as tokens of love.
Produced by Devin Lawerence
Edited by Macc Kay
Production executive Avalon Giuliano
ICON Intern Eden Giuliano

Music By AudioNautix With Their Kind Permission

©2020 Eden Garret Giuliano (P) Eden Garret Giuliano

Geoffrey Giuliano is the author of over thirty internationally bestselling biographies, including the London Sunday Times bestseller Blackbird: The Life and Times of Paul McCartney and Dark Horse: The Private Life of George Harrison. He can be heard on the Westwood One Radio Network and has written and produced over seven hundred original spoken-word albums and video documentaries on various aspects of popular culture. He is also a well known movie actor.

Rising rage and extreme bewilderment had swelled the noble breast of Mr Pickwick, almost to the bursting of his waistcoat’ Few first novels have created as much popular excitement as The Pickwick Papers – a comic masterpiece that catapulted its twenty-four-year-old author to immediate fame. Readers were captivated by the adventures of the poet Snodgrass, the lover Tupman, the sportsman Winkle and, above all, by that quintessentially English Quixote, Mr Pickwick, and his cockney Sancho Panza, Sam Weller. From the hallowed turf of Dingley Dell Cricket Club to the unholy fracas of the Eatanswill election, via the Fleet debtor’s prison, characters and incidents sprang to life from Dickens’s pen, to form an enduringly popular work of ebullient humour and literary invention.

When a twenty-four-year-old writer named Charles Dickens was asked to write a serialized story about English country life, no one anticipated that he was about to become one of the most famous authors of all time. The Pickwick Papers, as it came to be called, enchanted readers with its lively humor and delightfully drawn characters. The members of the Pickwick Club, presided over by the kindly old Mr. Samuel Pickwick, Esquire, agree to make a series of separate journeys into the English countryside and report back to the other club members on their adventures and observations, resulting in an abundance of entertaining anecdotes. When The Pickwick Papers was finally released as a complete novel, it became the first real publishing phenomenon, inspiring bootleg copies, theatrical performances, and merchandise based on the popular characters.

“Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage.”
“There are very few moments in a man’s existence when he experiences so much ludicrous distress, or meets with so little charitable commiseration, as when he is in pursuit of his own hat.”
― Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers
The Pickwick Papers was Charles Dickens’ first novel. Because of his success with Sketches by Boz published in 1836 Dickens was asked by the publisher Chapman & Hall to supply descriptions to explain a series of comic “cockney sporting plates” by illustrator Robert Seymour,[and to connect them into a novel. The book became Britain’s first real publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books, and other merchandise. On its cultural impact, Nicholas Dames in The Atlantic writes, “Literature” is not a big enough category for Pickwick. It defined its own, a new one that we have learned to call “entertainment.” Published in 19 issues over 20 months, the success of The Pickwick Papers popularized serialised fiction and cliffhanger endings.
Seymour’s widow claimed the idea for the novel was originally her husband’s, but Dickens strenuously denied any specific input in his preface to the 1867 edition: “Mr. Seymour never originated or suggested an incident, a phrase, or a word, to be found in the book.”
Charles Dickens was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world’s best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognized him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today.
Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school to work in a factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors’ prison. Despite his lack of formal education, he edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas,

Originally published in the 1852 Christmas edition of Dickens’ journal Household Words, The Poor Relation’s Story takes place during a Christmas feast, where a poor relation of the host tells the story of his life. This version of The Poor Relation’s Story is part of Dreamscape’s The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens.