It wouldn't be Christmas without Charles Dickens - the man who invented Christmas as we know it today. In this one volume are his three famous Yuletide tales. A Christmas Carol, the tale of the miserly Scrooge and the visitations that came on Christmas Eve to change his life, was written in 1840, red hot from his imagination. The Chimes is the tale of Trotty Veck the messenger and his daughter, and how they came to have faith and hope as the bells rang an old year out and a new year in; The Cricket on the Hearth records the fortunes of the cheerful home of John Peerybingle and his wife Dot. When the cricket chirps, all is well; but when it is silent, there is darkness and trouble coming. Dot is grateful for the cricket's presence and feels comforted when she can hear it for the Victorian age believed that when a cricket chose to move in, the home would always be a happy, loving one. Illustrated by Howard Simon.