Features some of the most memorably drawn villains in all of fiction - the treacherous gangmaster Fagin, the menacing thug Bill Sikes, the Artful Dodger and their den of thieves in the grimy London backstreets.
Chronicles David Copperfield's extraordinary journey through life, as he encounters villains, saviours, eccentrics and grotesques, including the wicked Mr Murdstone, stout-hearted Peggotty, formidable Betsey Trotwood, impecunious Micawber and odious Uriah Heep.
As the interminable case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce grinds its way through the Court of Chancery, it draws together a disparate group of people: Ada and Richard Clare, whose inheritance is gradually being devoured by legal costs; Esther Summerson, a ward of court, whose parentage is a source of deepening mystery; and, more.
This text is a revised edition of Dickens' classic tale. After 18 years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the ageing Dr Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. Two very different men become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette.
Coketown is dominated by the figure of Mr Thomas Gradgrind, school owner and model of Utilitarian success. Feeding both his pupils and his family with facts, he bans fancy and wonder from young minds. As a consequence his obedient daughter Louisa marries the loveless businessman and bully of humility Mr Bounderby.
'The monstrous thought came into my mind as I perused the fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man.' Three ghostly tales from a master of the form, 'The Signalman', 'The Trial for Murder' and the title story, 'To Be Read at Dusk'. One of 46 new books in the bestselling Little Black Classics series, to celebrate the first ever Penguin Classic in 1946. Each book gives readers a taste of the Classics' huge range and diversity, with works from around the world and across the centuries - including fables, decadence, heartbreak, tall tales, satire, ghosts, battles and elephants.
Paul Dombey is an ambitious, calculating London merchant. He pins all his hopes for the future of his shipping firm on his fragile son whilst his daughter, Florence, goes unnoticed and neglected. It is only when the firm faces ruin, and Dombey is staring at a life of desolate solitude that Florence may finally be valued.
Four bumbling members of a nineteenth-century London social club, known as the legendary Pickwick Club, journey to places outside the city and become involved in romantic foibles, danger, and a few legal scrapes.
This is a one-volume collection of Dickens' most popular Christmas stories and articles. It includes "A Christmas Carol", "The Chimes" and "The Haunted Man" and a few short items from Dickens' journalism on the subject of Christmas.
Around the central story of Nicholas Nickleby and the misfortunes of his family, Dickens created some of his most memorable characters: the muddle-headed Mrs Nickleby, the theatrical Crummles, their protege Miss Petowker, and the mindlessly cruel Squeers and his wife.
Set against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, this is a story of mystery and suspense which begins with an unsolved double murder and goes on to involve conspiracy, blackmail, abduction and retribution. As London erupts into riot, Barnaby Rudge struggles to escape the curse of his past.
Wealthy old Martin Chuzzlewit is surrounded by a host of grasping, unscrupulous relatives and suspects the family vices of selfishness and greed are already showing in his grandson. The younger Martin is therefore cast out upon the world to learn to fend for himself.
Taking a complex pattern of theme, symbol, comic exuberance, sharp social comment and telling detail, this novel takes a satirical look at wealth and its corrupting power, symbolized by the inheritance of a dust-heap and represented by the changing fortunes of Boffin, the golden dustman.
Described as a "tragedy of sorrows", the tale of Little Nell gripped the nation when it first appeared in 1841. It tells the story of Nell, uprooted from a secure and innocent childhood and cast into a world where evil takes many shapes, including Swiveller, Nubbles and the lecherous dwarf Quilp.
This is the frank record of Dickens' experience of the New World, from his uncomfortable sea voyage to his perception of the American character and his frequently savage criticism of American practices and habits. It is also a personal record of Dickens' emotional and political evolution.
