Passage Illustrated (Presented with the culminating illustration)

There was a dance in the evening. With which general mention of that recreation, I should have left it alone, if I had not some reason to suppose that it was quite an original dance, and one of a most uncommon figure. It was formed in an odd way; in this way.

Edward, that sailor — fellow — a good free dashing sort of a fellow he was — had been telling them various marvels concerning parrots, and mines, and Mexicans, and gold dust, when all at once he took it in his head to jump up from his seat and propose a dance; for Bertha’s harp was there, and she had such a hand upon it as you seldom hear. Dot (sly little piece of affectation when she chose) said her dancing days were over; I think because the Carrier was smoking his pipe, and she liked sitting by him, best. Mrs. Fielding had no choice, of course, but to say her dancing days were over, after that; and everybody said the same, except May; May was ready.

So, May and Edward got up, amid great applause, to dance alone; and Bertha plays her liveliest tune.

Well! if you’ll believe me, they have not been dancing five minutes, when suddenly the Carrier flings his pipe away, takes Dot round the waist, dashes out into the room, and starts off with her, toe and heel, quite wonderfully. Tackleton no sooner sees this, than he skims across to Mrs. Fielding, takes her round the waist, and follows suit. Old Dot no sooner sees this, than up he is, all alive, whisks off Mrs. Dot in the middle of the dance, and is the foremost there. Caleb no sooner sees this, than he clutches Tilly Slowboy by both hands and goes off at score; Miss Slowboy, firm in the belief that diving hotly in among the other couples, and effecting any number of concussions with them, is your only principle of footing it.

Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp; and how the kettle hums! ["Chirp the Third," 172-74]

Commentary: The Averted Catastrophe Celebrated in The Dance of Life

John: And now a song — a song!

All: Yes! A song.

Caleb: [Rising] Here's a harp — a rude thing — I made for Bertha. But Mrs. Peerybingle knows how to play it.

Dot: I'll do my best, John.

Song [Dot] [MS. of the official dramatic adaptation, 172]

In the Christmas novella's closing scene we seem to have entered the seasonal theatrical forms of the British stage: the burlesque, the extravaganza, and particularly the pantomime, entertaining for children and adult audience members alike. And indeed at the opening night of the official dramatic adaptation of the third Christmas Book the audience at London's Lyceum Theatre would have been treated to such a series, all penned by Dickens's chosen adaptor, Albert Smith, the dramatist responsible for the Keeleys' production of The Cricket on The Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home. The piece concludes with a comic song before Edward, now dressed as a sailor, requests a communal dance as a community celebration of his impending marriage to May Fielding. Edward's suggestion seems to arise spontaneously in the play after John's embracing Dot signifies the reconciliation of the jealous husband (Robert Keeley) and his attractive, much younger wife (Mary Keeley). Michael Slater in the Penguin edition of the novella criticizes its forced, overdone jocularity and "cloying and contrived effect" (21), but these qualities were well suited to such dramatic adaptations as The Lyceum's. Even the curmudgeonly Tackleton is integrated into this concluding "Dance of Life," albeit as a third masculine dancer behind John the carrier (foreground, left) and Caleb the toymaker (foreground, right), as the story's villain, now embraced by the community at festival, dances with a woman his own age, Mrs. Fielding (right, rear) in the bottom panel. In the play, John remarks to Tackleton, "We'll make you so jolly that you shan't believe yourself" (ms., 204). In Leech's realisation, even the toys are dancing with the kettle, the goblins, and the letters "G" and "T" (for "Grim and Tackleton," of course).

[BERTHA plays the harp. Music. MAY and EDWARD get up and dance for a little time alone. Then JOHN throws his pipe away, takes DOT around the waist, and joins them. Presently TACKLETON goes off with MRS. FIELDING; then DOT'S father and mother join in — lastly, CALEB and MISS SLOWBOY, and Neighbors. General Dance. THE END. [MS., 172]

So well suited was The Cricket on the Hearth to the stage that, by the middle of January, 1846, seventeen adaptations were available to London audiences, with Albert Smith's at The Lyceum being the first (opening 20 December 1845, the same day that the novella went on sale). It ran for sixty-one performances at The Lyceum, closing 11 May 1846, according to Malcolm Morley (1952).

Relevant Illustrations from the 1910 and 1912 edition

Above: Luigi Rossi's highly realistic frontispiece anticipating the novella's conclusion to the story, A Merry Christmas (1912).

Above: Harry Furniss's rather stagey visual conclusion to the sentimental story, Tackleton's Wedding Day (1910).

Illustrations for the Third Volume of the Pears' Centenary Christmas Books of Charles Dickens (1912)

Each contains about thirty illustrations from original drawings by Charles Green, R. I. — Clement Shorter (1912)

• L. Rossi's The Cricket on the Hearth (22 plates)

Bibliography

Cohen, Jane Rabb. "The Illustrators of the Christmas Books, John Leech." Charles Dickens and His Original Illustrators. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1980. Pp. 141-151.

Dickens, Charles. The Christmas Books. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Jr. The Diamond Edition of the Works of Charles Dickens. With illustrations by Sol Eytinge, Jr., and A. V. S. Anthony  (engraver). 16 vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1867. Vol. X.

Dickens, Charles. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. The Household Edition. 19 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1878. Vol. XVII.

Dickens, Charles. The Christmas Books. 2 vols. Illustrated by John Leech, Daniel Maclise, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, and Edwin Landseer. Engraved by George Dalziel, Edward Dalziel, T. Williams, J. Thompson, R. Graves, and Joseph Swain. Ed. Michael Slater. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971, rpt. 1978. 2 vols.

Dickens, Charles. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by E. A. Abbey. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876. Vol. III.

Dickens, Charles. The Cricket on the Hearth. A Fairy Tale of Home. Illustrated by John Leech, Daniel Maclise, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, and Edward Landseer. Engraved by George Dalziel, Edward Dalziel, T. Williams, Thompson, Graves, and Swain. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1846 [20 December 1845].

Dickens, Charles. The Cricket on the Hearth. Illustrated by Luigi Rossi. Centenary Edition of The Christmas Books. London: A & F Pears, 1912.

Morley, Malcolm. "'The Cricket' on Stage." Dickensian 48 (1952), 17-24.

Patten, Robert L. Chapter 8, "Chirping." Dickens, Death, and Christmas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. 169-199. [Review]

Smith, Albert. The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home. Lord Chamberlain's Collection, The British Library, licensed 17/12/1845. MS. 42990 ff. 145-204.

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Created 20 February 2001

Last modified 25 October 2026