Although a best seller in its day, The Cricket on the Hearth is seen by many of this generation as standing in the shadow of Charles Dickens' more popular volume A Christmas Carol. Undeservedly so! A more-than-delightful trace through a Victorian Christmas, Dickens tells the story of a kindly couple and their mysterious lodger, a poor toymaker and his blind daughter, a lost son, and a parsimonious toy merchant set upon marrying a virtuous young maiden against her better desires. But as you'd expect from Dickens, a magic of sorts is stirring amidst the story's participants-all under the watchful eyes of a songful cricket that, as Dickens takes hold of your imagination, may prove to be something so much more.