The Chimes: A Goblin Story

The Chimes: A Goblin Story is a short novel that was published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol. It is one of Dickens’s “Christmas stories,” which are five short books that contain strong social and moral messages.

The chimes are the old bells in the church on whose cold and windy steps poor and elderly Toby Veck waits for jobs. He is a ticket porter, or messenger, for those rich enough to use his services—although they despise his poverty and those like him. The book is divided into four parts called “Quarters,” after the quarter chimes of a striking clock, and in each one we meet an array of characters, stereotypically good and bad. The book reveals the power and significance of Dickens’s message that, as in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the pure of heart.”