Charles Dickens NOTABLE WORKS
Novels Bleak House David Copperfield Dombey and Son Great Expectations Hard Times: For These Times Little Dorrit The Adventures of Oliver Twist Tale of Two Cities The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby The Old Curiosity Shop Barnaby Rudge The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit
Christmas Books
Short Story Collections
A Christmas Carol The Chimes The Cricket on the Heath The Battle of Life The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain
Sketches by Boz The Mufdog Papers Reprinted Pieces The Uncommercial Traveller
Christmas Numbers of Household Words Magazine What Christmas Is, as We Grow Older (1851) A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire (1853) The Seven Poor Travellers (1854) The Holly-Tree Inn (1855) The Wreck of the ''Golden Mary'' (1856) The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) A House to Let (1858)
Christmas Numbers of All the Year Round Magazine The Haunted House (1859) A Message From the Sea (1860) Tom Tiddler’s Ground (1861) Somebody’s Luggage (1862) Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings (1863) Mrs. Lirriper’s Legacy (1864) Doctor Marigolds Prescriptions (1865) Mugby Junction (1866)
Dickens’s novels were initially serialised in weekly and monthly magazines, then reprinted in standard book formats.
Blurbs
Oliver Twist Orphaned at birth and abandoned to the hardships of the workhouse, Oliver Twist lives a gruelling life of poverty. Desperate to escape his heartless tormenters, he runs away to start a better life in London but, once there, he is befriended by a young pickpocket known as the Artful Dodger, who introduces him to Fagin and his gang of thieves. A chance encounter gives Oliver the opportunity to escape the criminal underworld but Fagin won’t let him get away so easily. And just when everything seems hopeless, events take a most unexpected turn … This special edition features an exclusive introduction by the highly acclaimed writer Peter Ackroyd, one of Britain’s leading literary biographers.
A Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge is unimpressed by Christmas. He has no time for festivities or goodwill toward his fellow men and is only interested in money. Then, on the night of Christmas Eve, his life is changed by a series of ghostly visitations that show him some bitter truths about his choices.A Christmas Carol is Dickens’ most influential book and a funny, clever and hugely enjoyable story.
Great Expectations The engrossing epic of murder, mysteries and an orphan boy’s promise of wealth. As a small boy at Joe Gargery’s forge, Pip meets two people who will affect his whole life - an escaped convict he is forced to help, and the eccentric Miss Havisham, whose beautiful, cold ward Estella young Pip adores. But when a secret benefactor pays for him to go to London to become a gentleman, Pip never dreams he will meet the dreadful Magwitch again, nor just how wrong his expectations are . . .
Tale of Two Cities Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton are alike in appearance, different in character and in love with the same woman. In the midst of the French Revolution, Darnay, who has fled to London to escape the cruelty of the French nobility, must return to Paris to rescue his servant from death. But he endangers his own life and is captured. Carton may be able to help, but will his resemblance be enough to save Darnay’s life?
Famous Quotes Oliver Twist Fagin: What’s become of the boy? Speak or I’ll throttle you! Dodger: The traps have got him, and that’s all about it! Strike them all dead! What right have you to butcher me? Please Sir, I want some more. Mr. Bumble: You’ll make your fortune Mr Sowerberry. Mr. Sowerberry: The prices allowed by the board are very small. Mr. Bumble: So are the coffins. Mr. Sowerberry: There’s an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear, which is very interesting. He’d make a delightful mute, my love. Mr. Bumble: Where is this audacious young savage? Fagin: Clever dogs, clever dogs. Never blowed on old Fagin. Fagin: You’d like to make pocket handkerchiefs as easily as the Artful Dodger, wouldn’t you my dear? Oliver Twist: Yes, if you teach me sir. Fagin: We will, my dear, we will. Nancy: He’ll blow on us Fagin, for certain. Mr. Brownlow: How would you like to grow up a clever man and write books? Oliver Twist: I think I’d rather read them sir. Mr. Brownlow: What, don’t you want to be a book writer? Oliver Twist: I think I’d rather be a bookseller sir. Oliver Twist: I don’t know them, I don’t belong with them. Bill Sikes: Fair or not fair, give it ‘ere you avaricious old skeleton.
Great Expectations “Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations.” “Take another glass of wine, and excuse my mentioning that society as a body does not expect one to be so strictly conscientious in emptying one’s glass, as to turn it bottom upwards with the rim on one’s nose.” “Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself.” “It was understood that nothing of a tender nature could possibly be confided to old Barley, by reason of his being totally unequal to the consideration of any subject more psychological than gout, rum, and purser’s stores.”
“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.”
Famous Charles Dickens Quotes A boy’s story is the best that is ever told. A day wasted on others is not wasted on one’s self. A loving heart is the truest wisdom. A person who can’t pay gets another person who can’t pay to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don’t make either of them able to do a walking-match. Although a skillful flatterer is a most delightful companion if you have him all to yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people. An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself. Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he’s well dressed. There ain’t much credit in that. Anything for the quick life, as the man said when he took the situation at the lighthouse. Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door. Credit is a system whereby a person who can not pay gets another person who can not pay to guarantee that he can pay. Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts. I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.