Charles Dickens Books

I appreciate this edition for its introduction (which is interesting for literature buffs and beneficial for serious students/readers), for the end notes (which are definitely helpful in explaining Victorian allusions and other references for readers who have little or no background or experience with such), for the inclusion of the original ending (which provokes a variety of options for discussion and examination), for the discussion questions, and for the presentation (easy to read pages). My students find this edition less intimidating than some others; overall, this edition seems user-friendly rather than overwhelming (which is often the case with such a long story).

This edition of Dickens' Great Expectations is considered one of, if not THE scholarly edition now in print. It contains a cogent introduction to the novel and an exhaustive appendix. Although the price will keep many, if not all, from purchasing the book it is definetly look for from a library--looking in a university's library is probably the best bet for finding a copy.

Awesome to listen from a perfect voice a great classic like this. A pleasure!!!

I remember when I was given this book as a surprise in college because I was the one deemed a hopeless romantic. Anyways, I was 17 and it was my first year away from home in Toronto spending the summer working three jobs for tuition. I must say that this was a great read in between shifts because it helped my mind drift away from worries of money and school at the time. And after all these years ... this collection is still the best one...despite all the paperbacks churned out by Harlequin.

Sadly, this Christmas novella is overshadowed (as are the other four) by A Christmas Carol -- which is, no question, a classic.

But I found this book a worthy equal, if not a bit better than Carol, in that the characters are a little more fleshed out, the movement of the story has darker and therefore more dramatic flourishes - while at the same time the comic characters are more complete and take a more central place in the plot. And the `message' is a bit less obvious.

The ghost of the title is far more sinister than Marley and Christmas Future combined!

Palmer's third book in this "series" continues to capture Victorian England; he is able to evoke the landscape and atmosphere of the time, of the place, and of the characters. Most don't. Aside from Anne Perry and Michael Crichton's "Great Train Robbery," I have not read such convincing Victoriana and the accompanying hypocrisy. Palmer is able to sustain the reader's interest throughout, particularly with his use of other "real" characters such as Florence Nightingale. He is able to make Dickens quite the human character!

Charles Dickens's Hunted Down: The Detective Stories Of Charles Dickens gathers stories which demonstrates the detective-writing prowess of a classic author best known for his social issues fiction. His influence on crime fiction fostered the development of a genre, while his characters and plots were based on his observations of the fledgling police detective force when he was a reporter and accompanied them on their nightly patrols. Any fan of detective fiction will find this an essential key to the early methods and choices of the genre.

This is one of the most interesting books I have read on the work of Dickens. One of the major thesis of the book is that Dickens great creative powers were not accompanied by spiritual and intellectual growth. Rather Cockshut claims Dickens great popularity as an artist, his tremendous humor were the product of a natural, almost instinctive creative power. Dickens is seen as someone who knew how to seize the popular imagination to excite the reader with his melodramatic imagination. Cockshut shows that even Dickens famous indignation at the injustices of Industrial Society were not translated into a well - thought and generalized doctrine.
He too upsets certain generally accepted conceptions such as the one that Dickens is a writer of the 'family' In fact he argues that Dickens rarely wrote about the nuclear family but rather the family he most portrayed was the extended kind of loose- tied family in which distant aunts and uncles prevail.
Cockshut shows how a great artist can nonetheless be very limited in his inner life, and self - understanding
Again this is a very fine and interesting study.

SINCE I OWN THE 82 YEARS OLD BOOK, I ENJOYED READING THIS AND WRITING NOTES [IN THE MARGINS] FOR SCHOOL CLASSES. THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH THE OLD BOOK..IT WOULD DESTORY THIS BOOK...AND AMAZON WILL FIND A BOOK FOR ANYONE IF THE QUESTION IS ASKED. THANKS AMAZON FOR RESEARCH...DORAN E. FIGART

Please note that this review is of the book, and not the audio tapes. Also, please check out www dot yourwords dot ca for this review and others.

While there is normally (and quite understandably) a certain stigma attached to essay collections, this is one very noteworthy exception. Covering topics from political discourse and sociological perspective to Shakespeare and "penny-dreadfuls," each essay is written fluidly and intelligently, with insight and understanding. In fact noteworthy is a perfect word to describe Orwell's writing, as I found myself jotting down notes constantly while I read.

In my final year of high school, my English teacher whom I'd respected very much handed out photocopies of an essay called "Politics and the English Language" and encouraged us to read it on our own time- assuring us that it had blown him away. Needless to say, and though I had understood significantly little of the essay at first reading, I too was taken by the ideas within the text and have read it repeatedly since then. After randomly picking up "Inside the whale..." in a used-book shop and seeing "Politics..." in the index, I knew I had to have this book.

There are far too many ideas in the book to discuss at length, but what can be said is that Orwell's breadth of ideas is staggering. I find myself reluctant to continue this review because I cannot intelligently say enough to give anyone a proper idea of just how influential several of these essays were on me, so consider my words to be inadequate as you read on. 'Politics and the English Language' and 'The Prevention of Literature' both observe the decay of language and literature in the face of oppressive governments in so accurate an analysis that this reader couldn't help but nod in solemn agreement as the words enlivened my imagination. It is within these two essays that many ideas later used in 1984 can be found germinating in the writer. The only essay I found to be laborious was the last of the collection, 'Boys' Weeklies,' in which he describes various comics that many young men of his generation grew up reading. This simply didn't interest me because I had never heard of any of the comics, and so the point was ultimately lost on me. 'Shooting an Elephant' could well have been a chapter straight out of Burmese Days, and is particularly noteworthy for Orwell's very personal account of social expectation forcing one to do what one otherwise would not.

If you're into Orwell's writing, this book is a must-have. If you aren't, there are several essays within the collection that everyone should read- even if only to consider the ideas put forth, as they are ideas that do and will affect anyone born into a society such as ours.