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A unique presentation of Dickens' classic tale of Scrooge and his reformation at the hands of the ghosts of Jacob Marley and Christmases Past, Present and Future. Illustrated by Peter Fluck and Roger Law, this is the complete text of Dickens original work. -
A well-chosen compilation of essays, discourses and short stories. In this volume: The Philosophic Mind; A Bevy of Lovers; Husbands and Wives; Law and Lawyers; The London Scene; To Lie Magnificently; A Little Learning; Essays in Invective; Some Observations on Food; The Latest Hour; The Aphorisms of Samuel and Tony Weller. -
The French Revolution - a time of great change and great danger; a time when injustice was met by a blood-lust for vengeance - and rarely was a distinction made between the innocent and the guilty. This tumultuous historical event is the setting for Dickens' story of unsurpassed adventure and courage. Unjustly imprisoned for 18 years in the Bastille, Dr. Alexandre Manette is reunited with his daughter, Lucie, and safely transported from France to England. It would seem that they could take up the threads of their lives in peace. As fate would have it, the pair are summoned to the Old Bailey to testify against a young Frenchman - Charles Darnay - falsely accused of treason. Yet - strangely enough - Darnay bears an uncanny resemblance to the dissolute lawyer's clerk, Sydney Carton. Can this resemblance save Darnay? Brilliantly plotted, a story rich in drama, romance and bravery. -
First published by Charles Dickens in 1855, Boots at the Holly-Tree Inn is the story of a traveller who finds himself snowed in for a week at the Holly-Tree Inn – so he entertains himself by recording the stories he hears from the other lodgers and staff. In this volume: Boots At The Holy Tree Inn; Doctor Marigold’s Prescriptions: To Be Taken Immediately; Not To Be Taken At Bedtime; To Be Taken At The Dinner Table; Not To Be Taken For Granted; To Be Taken In Water; To Be Taken With A Grain Of Salt; To Be Taken And Tried; To Be Taken For Life. The First Poor Traveller’s Story; Mrs Lirriper’s Lodgings: How Mrs Lirriper Carried On The Business; How The First Floor Went To Crowley Castle; How The Side-Room Was Attended By A Doctor; How The Second Floor Kept A Dog; How The Third Floor Knew The Potteries; How The Best Attic Was Under A Cloud; How The Parlours Added A Few Words. Mrs Lirriper’s Legacy: Mrs Lirriper Relates How She Went On And Went Over; A Past Lodger Relates A Wild Story Of A Doctor; Another Past Lodger Relates His Experience As A Poor Relation; Another Past Lodger Relates What Lot He Drew At Glumper House; Another Past Lodger Relates His Own Ghost Story; Another Past Lodger Relates Certain Passages To Her Husband; Mrs Lirriper Relates How Jemmy Topped Up. -
In this volume: A Christmas Carol: Ebenezer Scrooge, tight-fisted, grasping and miserable, is visited by the ghost of his late business partner, who sends him the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future to make him change his ways; The Chimes: Toby Veck, known as 'Trotty' is a poor working-class man. When Trotty loses his faith in Humanity after overhearing a conversation of those he believes to be his betters he begins to think his poverty is the result of his unworthiness. He is visited on New Year's Eve by spirits to help restore his faith and show him that nobody is born evil, but rather that crime and poverty are things created by man. The Cricket On The Hearth: A cricket who chirps from the hearth of John and Dot Peerybingle appears to have supernatural powers and restores faith to the people of the house as they realise that when he chirps, all is well; but when he is silent, something is amiss. The Battle Of Life: Grace and Marion live happily in a village with their widowed father. But when Marion disappears, it is believed she has eloped with a ne'er-do-well libertine to the sorrow of her fiancé. The Haunted Man: Redlaw, a teacher of chemistry, often broods over wrongs done him and grief from his past. He is attended to by his servants Mr. Swidger and his 87-year-old father who helps the cook, Milly William, decorate Redlaw's rooms with holly. He is haunted by a spirit, a phantom twin an awful likeness of himself...with his features, and his bright eyes, and his grizzled hair, and dressed in the gloomy shadow of his dress... This Ghost proposes to Redlaw that he can allow him to forget the sorrow, wrong, and trouble he has known and cancel their remembrance. And Redlaw will have the power to bestow this gift on anyone he meets. Is it a gift? Or a curse? With illustrations. -
It wouldn't be Christmas without Charles Dickens - the man who invented Christmas as we know it today. In this one volume are his three famous Yuletide tales. A Christmas Carol, the tale of the miserly Scrooge and the visitations that came on Christmas Eve to change his life, was written in 1840, red hot from his imagination. The Chimes is the tale of Trotty Veck the messenger and his daughter, and how they came to have faith and hope as the bells rang an old year out and a new year in; The Cricket on the Hearth records the fortunes of the cheerful home of John Peerybingle and his wife Dot. When the cricket chirps, all is well; but when it is silent, there is darkness and trouble coming. Dot is grateful for the cricket's presence and feels comforted when she can hear it for the Victorian age believed that when a cricket chose to move in, the home would always be a happy, loving one. Illustrated by Howard Simon. -
Dombey is a proud, stern and unfeeling man obsessed with his son, longing for the day that his shipping firm will one day bear the name Dombey and Son. This single-minded ambition, granted... then cruelly taken away, leads Dombey through tragedy, bitterness and separation from his staunch daughter Florence and others who he has wronged and who nevertheless have endeavoured to love him. -
As a boy, Pip Pirrip helps escaped convict Magwitch. Later, to his surprise, he is chosen as a companion to Estelle, the adopted niece of the eccentric Miss Havisham. Some years later Pip finds himself very suddenly elevated from blacksmith's apprentice to a young man of means, with a very good education in view and no clue as to who his mysterious benefactor may be. Filled with wonderful Dickens characters: Joe Gadgery, the simple blacksmith, the mad Miss Havisham clad in the tatters of her wedding gown amid the ruin of her once-grand house, the sinister Magwitch, the perpetually upbeat Samuel Pockets and Samuel's equally upbeat Aged Parent. This edition that contains the two endings that Dickens had determined for Pip. -
This Dickens offering is set in the imaginary Northern Industrial town of Coketown - a place of blackened factories, downtrodden workers and a polluted environment, the soulless domain of the strict schoolmaster Thomas Gradgrind and heartless factory owner Josiah Bounderby. However, there is always Mr. Sleary's Horse-Riding Circus to lighten things up - a gin-soaked and hilarious troupe of open-hearted and affectionate people who are the antidote to the drudgery and misery of Coketown. Attacked for its 'sullen socialism', it is now regarded as Dickens' most important statement on Victorian society. Also - unusually - this is one of Dickens' shorter novels. Cover art: A Street Scene In Copenhagen by Detlov Konrad Blunck. -
On of Dickens' classics written to rouse society to the sufferings of the poor and the Government's ineptness to do anything practical to help those who had no choice but the grim workhouse. It also illustrates the complete lack of feeling toward the poor, and the corruption that was rife in a mean welfare system that actually made things worse, not better. Oliver's mother dies while bringing him into the world; and the sensitive boy is buffeted from the horrific workhouse to being sold to an undertaker and thence into the foul slums of London. He naively falls in with the Artful Dodger and the evil Fagin, fencer of stolen goods and schooler of children in the art of thievery. There is the vicious Bill Sikes and his pathetic lover Nancy, who is kind to Oliver; Mr Bumble the bullying beadle, Mrs Sowerberry and a whole raft of other vivid Dickensian characters. Oliver's story is unforgettable. Cover art by Seymour Chwast. -
On of Dickens' classics written to rouse society to the sufferings of the poor and the Government's ineptness to do anything practical to help those who had no choice but the grim workhouse. It also illustrates the complete lack of feeling toward the poor, and the corruption that was rife in a mean welfare system that actually made things worse, not better. Oliver's mother dies while bringing him into the world; and the sensitive boy is buffeted from the horrific workhouse to being sold to an undertaker and thence into the foul slums of London. He naively falls in with the Artful Dodger and the evil Fagin, fencer of stolen goods and schooler of children in the art of thievery. There is the vicious Bill Sikes and his pathetic lover Nancy, who is kind to Oliver; Mr Bumble the bullying beadle, Mrs Sowerberry and a whole raft of other vivid Dickensian characters. Oliver's story is unforgettable. This is the complete and unabridged text; with illustrations by George Cruikshank from the 1892 and 1897 editions. -
Dickens wrote five Christmas Books in all, the first and best known being A Christmas Carol. The Cricket On The Hearth is third in the series but probably the second favourite in line. The Cricket of the title is a barometer of life at the home of John Peerybingle and his much younger wife, Dot. When things go well, the cricket on the hearth chirps; it is silent when there is sorrow. Tackleton, a jealous old man, poisons John's mind about Dot. The cricket, a creature long credited in many cultures with supernatural abilities, has his work cut out for him to detoxify good John's mind of the horrible suspicions the repulsive old Tackleton has sown. Illustrated by Gordon Robinson. -
A unique and special book in that it reflects Dickens’ love of God and faith in Jesus Christ. The great novelist unfolds the Gospel message of Jesus Christ in the beautiful “Dickensian” prose the world has come to adore, specifically for his own children during their earlier years. It is a reflection on the heart of the man and the primary motivation behind his great literary works - his faith in Christ and his love for his fellow man. -
Edwin Drood is contracted to marry orphan Rosa Bud when he comes of age, but when they find that duty has gradually replaced affection, they agree to break off the engagement. Shortly afterwards, in the middle of a storm on Christmas Eve, Edwin disappears, leaving nothing behind but some personal belongings and the suspicion that his jealous uncle John Jasper, madly in love with Rosa, is a murderer. Beyond this presumed crime there are further intrigues: the dark opium dens of the sleepy cathedral town of Cloisterham, and the sinister double life of Choirmaster Jasper, whose drug-fuelled fantasy life belies his respectable appearance. Dickens died before completing The Mystery of Edwin Drood, leaving its tantalising mystery unsolved and encouraging successive generations of readers to turn detective. Illustrated by C.E. Montford. -
Little Nell Trent lives in the quiet gloom of the old curiosity shop with her ailing grandfather, for whom she cares with selfless devotion. But when they are unable to pay their debts to the stunted, lecherous and evil money-lender Daniel Quilp, the shop is seized and they are forced to flee, thrown into a shadowy world in which there seems to be no safe haven. Dickens's portrayal of the innocent, tragic Nell made The Old Curiosity Shop an instant bestseller that captured the hearts of the nation, even as it was criticised for its sentimentality by figures such as Oscar Wilde. This story has some of Dickens's greatest comic and grotesque creations: the ne'er-do-well Dick Swiveller, the mannish lawyer Sally Brass, the half-starved 'Marchioness' and the lustful, loathsome Quilp himself. -
Little Nell Trent lives in the quiet gloom of the old curiosity shop with her ailing grandfather, for whom she cares with selfless devotion. But when they are unable to pay their debts to the stunted, lecherous and demonic money-lender Daniel Quilp, the shop is seized and they are forced to flee, thrown into a shadowy world in which there seems to be no safe haven. Dickens's portrayal of the innocent, tragic Nell made The Old Curiosity Shop an instant bestseller that captured the hearts of the nation, even as it was criticised for its sentimentality by figures such as Oscar Wilde. Yet alongside the story's pathos are some of Dickens's greatest comic and grotesque creations: the ne'er-do-well Dick Swiveller, the mannish lawyer Sally Brass, the half-starved 'Marchioness' and the lustful, loathsome Quilp himself. Colour plates.
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The Pickwick Papers - the comic masterpiece that catapulted the 24-year-old Dickens to immediate fame. Readers were captivated by the adventures of the poet Snodgrass, the lover Tupman, the sportsman Winkle and above all, the quintessentially English Quixote, Mr Pickwick - founder and perpetual president of the Pickwick Club - and his cockney Sancho Panza, Sam Weller. The Pickwickians travel to the far-flung corners of London in search of adventure – from the hallowed turf of Dingley Dell Cricket Club to the unholy fracas of the Eatanswill election, via the Fleet debtor’s prison. Fortunately for this band of gentlemen, amusement and hilarity are never in short supply. Along their way, they encounter plenty of characters – from villains who land them in deep trouble to the lady who sues Pickwick to force him into marriage - and all provide the Pickwickians with plenty of entertaining tales.
