Can anyone think of Christmas without thinking of Dickens, the man who virtually invented it? Recurring throughout his writing, it figures as his most powerful symbol of community, humanity and the possibility of redemption. In the Christmas Books these positive themes are dramatized against surprisingly dark backgrounds. ‘The Chimes’ is a fantasy of loss and regeneration featuring the father–daughter relationship which so preoccupied this writer. In ‘The Cricket on the Hearth’ and ‘The Battle o...