Charles Dickens
First published in 1854, Hard Times is a profoundly moving, articulate and searing indictment of the life-reducing effects of the industrial revolution, and certain aspects of enlightenment thinking. Set in the fictional midlands mill-town of Coketown, the narrative centers on the industrialist, Mr Thomas Gradgrind, whose belief in scientific utilitarianism skews his world view and is a motive force, carrying the narrative towards farce
...Charles Dickens' work is ranked among the finest writing in the Western canon, and the author specialized in seasonal stories to warm the hearts of his adoring fans during the holiday season. This collection of Christmas-themed tales are an entertaining read during the holidays or any time you need a quick pick-me-up.
The Pickwick Papers was Dickens' first published novel and the first ever publishing phenomenon with illegal copies, theatrical performances and merchandise. It follows the travels of Mr Pickwick and the Pickwick Club through the English countryside, and is made up of Dickens' usual array of exaggerated, comic characters. The various adventures and encounters are loosely related, suiting the serial format in which the novel was first published.
...Our Mutual Friend was Charles Dickens' last completed novel, and some believe his most sophisticated. A young man discovers that he must marry a mercenary young woman before he can claim his inheritance. He is on his way to do his father's bidding when a body discovered in the Thames is identified as his, and his inheritance passes instead to Boffins, a working class man. The effects are felt through all levels of society.
6) What Christmas Means as We Grow Older: A Christmas Story about Charity, Optimism, and Forgiveness
A Dickens Christmas story about charity, hope, and forgiveness, with a touch of remembrance and loss. This very adult story looks back and through one's life, promises made, aspirations filled and unfilled, love had and lost, and many other such touching moments in everyone's life. An American voice was used per listener request.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Charles Dickens', A Tale of Two Cities, begins with these famous words. On the eve of the French Revolution of 1789, the story follows Charles Darney, a French aristocrat-turned-revolutionary, and Sydney Carton, a purposeless British lawyer in love with Darney's wife, Lucie. Sydney's love for Lucie inspires him to join the Revolution alongside his friend Darney, at a time when both
...9) Oliver Twist
Pip, a poor orphan being raised by a cruel sister, does not have much in the way of great expectations—until he is inexplicably elevated to wealth by an anonymous benefactor. Full of unforgettable characters—including a terrifying convict named Magwitch, the eccentric Miss Havisham,...
12) Hard times
13) Bleak House
A enthralling story about the inequalities of the 19th-century English legal system Bleak House is one of Charles Dicken's most multifaceted novels. Bleak House deals with a multiplicity of characters, plots and subplots that all weave in and around the true story of the famous case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, a case of litigation in England's Court of Chancery, which starts as a problem of legacy and wills, but soon raises the question
...The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a highly atmospheric tale of murder. Central to the plot is John Jasper: in public he is a man of integrity and benevolence; in private he is an opium addict....
Though best known for his heartwarming holiday tales and sweeping social novels such as A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations, Charles Dickens was a prolific writer who was always willing to experiment with new styles. The chilling tales collected in Three Ghost Stories are a result of his brief but successful foray into the mystery and detective genres.
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the ageing Doctor Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There the lives of the two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed...
19) Little Dorrit
Little Dorrit grows up in the Marshalsea debtor's prison, where her father has been imprisoned ever since her birth. When Mr Dorrit's debt is excused, he is anxious to forget his inglorious past and be accepted back into the best circles of society. Dickens criticizes the hierarchical society which would demand such an impossible thing of a man, and also questions which class of their acquaintance are good people and true friends. When one of London's
...Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol under financial duress, but it became one of his most popular and enduring stories. The old miser Ebenezer Scrooge cares nothing for family, friends, love or Christmas. All he cares about is money. Then one Christmas Eve he is visited by three ghosts: Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet To Come. These encounters leave Scrooge deeply moved and forever changed. Historians believe that A Christmas
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