THE ART OF ELOQUENCE: BYRON, DICKENS, TENNYSON, JOYCE
In the course of these fifty years we have become a nation of public speakers. Everyone speaks now. We are now more than ever a debating, that is, a Parliamentary people' (The Times, 1873).
Explanation of the novel's title: The chimes are old bells in the church on whose steps Trotty Veck plies his trade. The book is divided into four parts named "quarters", after the quarter-chimes of a chiming clock. The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, a short novel by Charles Dickens, was written and published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol. It is the second in his series of "Christmas books": five short books with strong social and moral messages that he published during the 1840's.
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, better known as The Pickwick Papers, is the first novel by Charles Dickens. Written for publication as a serial, The Pickwick Papers is a sequence of loosely-related adventures. Its main literary value and appeal is formed by its numerous memorable characters. Each character in The Pickwick Papers, as in many other Dickens novels, is drawn comically, often with exaggerated personalities.
Another entry in the publisher's redesign of its old Literary A to Z series, this one an update of the volume on Dickens published in 1998. Following a seven-page biography, separate sections deal with "Works A–Z" and "Related People, Places, and Topics." Appendixes provide a chronology and bibliographies of primary and secondary sources. As with other volumes in the revamped series, one of the most useful features is the detailed coverage of major works, with synopsis, commentary, and character entries.
