The Cricket on the Hearth is a novella by Charles Dickens, written in 1845. It is the third of Dickens' five Christmas books, the others being A Christmas Carol (1843), The Chimes (1844), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man (1847).
Left penniless by the death of his improvident father, young Nicholas Nickleby assumes responsibility for his mother and sister and seeks help from his Scrooge-like Uncle Ralph. Instantly disliking Nicholas, Ralph sends him to teach in a school run by the stupidly sadistic Wackford Squeers. Nicholas decides to escape, taking with him the orphan Smike, one of Squeers’s most abused young charges, and the two embark on a series of adventurous encounters with an array of humanity’s worst and best—greedy fools, corrupt lechers, cheery innocents, and selfless benefactors.
The first genuine mystery novel written by Dickens was never finished and was published posthumously in 1870 leaving the mystery unsolved forever. The choirmaster of Cloisterham, Jack Jasper, has a ward named Edwin Drood, a respectable young man engaged to Rosa Bud. Underneath the respectability Drood is an opium addict and no longer loves Rosa, the secret love of Jasper. Drood breaks the engagement and disappears completely. Also in love with Rosa, Neville Landless is arrested for Drood's murder, but released for lack of a body. Fearing Rosa's feelings for Landless, Jasper confesses his love and threatens to further implicate Landless in the murder unless she returns his love. The manuscript ends as Datchery, a shadowy character bedeviling Jasper, is introduced. Speculation abounds, but the mystery remains.
