Note 17 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
It is interesting to place on record here, that the germ of Charles Dickens's "Readings," which afterwards developed so marvellously both in England and America, originated in Birmingham. On the 27th of December, 1853, he read his Christmas Carol in the Town Hall in aid of the funds of the Institute. On the 29th he read The Cricket on the Hearth, and on the 30th he repeated the Carol to an audience principally composed of working men. The success was overwhelming.