A delightful collection, and the perfect companion to whichever performance of A Christmas Carol you prefer. Two of the stories here – The Chimes and The Cricket on the Hearth – are readily available elsewhere; but the other two, The Battle of Life and The Haunted Man, are harder to come by. And David Timson is the Dickens narrator nonpareil, and even if you have other versions of the stories, his interpretations are always a treat.

Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award
Dickens’s four Christmas-themed novellas display the author’s strengths and weaknesses; David Timson enhances the strengths and strengthens the weaknesses, such as sentimentality and overplayed emotions. When Dickens is excessive, Timson is, too, but he manages to carry it off. He alone is an entire cast, with only female characters occasionally not fully convincing. He not only provides varied and excellent voices, but he also matches voice to character with intelligence and discernment, always seeming to provide the perfect voice for any particular character. His narration is consistently genial and smart but varies sensitively with the text – sober, amused, merry. These minor works won’t please everyone, but those who appreciate them may find listening to Timson more entertaining than reading.