The Essential Dickens Christmas: A Christmas Carol and Eight Festive Tales
About this audiobook
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.
Ratings and reviews
About the author
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was an English author and social reformer. He is widely considered the greatest Victorian novelist, having written such classics as Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, and Oliver Twist. Aside from his novels, he also wrote short stories, nonfiction, poetry, plays, and countless letters.
Greg Wagland is an actor, audiobook narrator, and voice artist. His audiobook credits include classics, fiction, history, poetry, biography, nonfiction, science fiction, as well as young adult and children’s fiction.
Liam Gerrard is an award-winning voice artist with over ten years of experience working in every field of the voice industry, as well as a highly acclaimed stage and screen actor. His animation Walter Tull-Britain's First Black Officer was nominated for a BAFTA in 2016, and he has been nominated for an Audie Award in 2017. He has narrated over thirty audiobooks in a wide range of genres and styles. He comes from a large Irish family, although he was raised in Yorkshire before moving to the Middle East, where he went to school. He studied at Lancaster University and then as a classically trained actor at Mountview; he is currently the youngest actor to play the lead role of Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest in London's West End. He has worked for the most renowned theater companies, including the Royal Exchange Theatre (two Manchester theater award nominations), Edinburgh Lyceum Theatre (five Critics Choice nominations), Soho Theatre (MTN nomination), and most regional theaters throughout the U.K., including Alan Aykbourn's SJT, New Vic, Oldham Coliseum, Nottingham Playhouse, and Theatre by the Lake. His wide-ranging experience has also seen him perform Opera in Rigoletto. He is an associate lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University in Broadcast Voice and is also a communication skills specialist and trainer. In addition, he is an examiner for the Royal College of Psychiatry, Royal College of Surgeons, Royal Scottish College of Surgery. In his spare time Liam is also a musician who plays the violin, drums, piano, and percussion. He also enjoys spending time with Peg, his Springer Spaniel, out on the Peak District whenever he can get away from the studio!
Tim Bruce is an Earphones award-winning actor and audiobook narrator with over twenty-five years of experience.
James Gillies is a member of the Strategic Planning and Evaluation unit at CERN. He was head of the organization's communications group from 2003 to 2015 and is the co-author of How the Web Was Born, a history of the Internet published in 2000 that was described by The Times as being among the year's ten best books for inquisitive minds.
British audiobook narrator and AudioFile Earphones Award winner Nigel Patterson has many credits as a stage, screen, and voice-over actor that influence his powerful characterization across a broad range of genres. AudioFile commented "his keen ear and impeccable diction give insights into the prevailing attitudes of the period... his wholly credible characters stay with you long after you unplug." A graduate linguist of the University of Oxford, he is fluent in French and Spanish, has lived and worked in the U.S. for fifteen years, and knows many different accents and dialects from around the world.
Helen Lloyd is a British actor and voice artist who recorded her first voice-over at the age of fourteen. A classically trained actor, she has performed with many of Britain’s leading repertory theaters, as well as at the Edinburgh Festival and on the West End.
Malk Williams is a voice talent and Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator.
