Charles Dickens Books

This slender volume is Charles Dickens' written interpertation on the four Gospels. He made the provision that it was not to be published until much later. It is a father's testimony of the truth of the things he held dear. A real treasure.

This recording is superb! Like all of Dickens these tapes show excelent writing skills!

Many years ago, while browsing the shelves of W.H.Smith in Paris, I stumbled into a small book, elegantly written and brilliant as few books can be: "Frozen Desire - An Inquiry into the meaning of money" by James Buchan.
In that book the writer argued that obsession with money was in fact mirror of an obsession with time.
Money in other words to Buchan was but "frozen desire".
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This book, "The Lives and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge" can be considered a variation on that theme.
Focusing on the popularity and significance of Dickens' "Christmas Carol", the author look into the despair caused by the "frozen desire": the impossibility to live a meaningful life, the systematic postponement of pleasure and in the end the loss of every sense and true significance of life.
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Since 1843 when it first made it appearance, Scrooge has been able to become a much larger persona than the main character of Dickens' Christmas story.
He has been able to pervade the Christmas imaginary, becoming a symbol not just of redemption but as well of the afflictions of the modern times.
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The book is organized around three main themes.
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The first deals with Dickens writing of the story and the original message he wanted to relay.
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The second has more to do with the reception of the story by contemporaries and its importance in shaping the idea of Christmas, while each new generation of readers re-interpreted the story.
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The third - probably the most interesting - focuses on what Davis calls "the economics of Christmas" and analyzes this obsession with money versus the spirit of community incarnated by Christmas.
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I read this book with immense pleasure.
Compared to "Frozen Desire", the style here is less colorful and more modest, but Davis is able to hold the attention of the reader to the last page.
Shame the book is currently out of print!
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While Dickens in writing the Carol wanted it to be primarily a denunciation of the inhumane conditions in which the poor lived, it ended to became - already under his pen - a true mirror of the hopes and fears that haunted both contemporaries and posterity.
Dickens effectively ended in reinventing Christmas, from countryside tradition to urban institution, from religious to secular celebration (a feature this one, that was harshly criticized by some contemporaries).
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Notwithstanding this worldly dimension, Davis is able to emphasize the spiritual and religious sensibility that pervades the story: the model of the Bunjam's "Pilgrim Progress", image of the holy family mirrored in Tiny Tim's family, the many conversions of Scrooge ...
It was this aspect that permitted the story to be read and reinvented by each new generation of readers: mirror story of the holy family, exemplary account of the punishment and conversion of the miser, ...
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A true cameo is the story of the metamorphosis and reinvention of the Christmas Carol during the 1930s: the inspiration it provided to Frank Capra's "It's a wonderful life" (Lionel Barrimore - Potter the Banker was famous for annual reading of the Carol at the radio) and the emblematic significance of the story for New Dealers in fostering solidarity and abandoning "the assumptions of scarcity to adopt the perspective of affluence" (President Roosevelt was famous for reading the Carol to the family every year, while Eleanor made a recording of the story which was commercially distributed).
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The "economics of Christmas" is the most interesting part and yet I believe it could have been open to further expansion.
Dickens was writing this story out of indignation for the publication of parliamentary inquiries on child labor, but he wanted also to challenge Malthusian pessimism ("the assumptions of scarcity") proposing a more humane attitude to life and people ("the perspective of affluence").
So the Carol became the parable of the economics of abundance as an alternative to the tradition of scarcity.
Paradoxically Scrooge is never a completely negative character: he's aloof and cold more out of a psychological impasse. The reader can feel this psychological impasse and in this is also the seed of future conversion: egoism and postponement of pleasure are a recipe for actual moral and economic scarcity.
Discounting the future has sense only in the present.
Scrooge is a Malthusian pessimist who saves compulsively for fear of the future, the present not having any value but in doing so he is suffering more than anybody else... : he does not marry waiting for better times, he does not enjoy life and he loose the sense of the true value of time (the true scarcity).
His conversion is a vindication of the virtue of solidarity in attaining a new sense of self-confidence and prosperity.
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You are most welcome if you can suggest other books about the same theme or just share ideas and comments!
Thanks for reading.

MRS. LIRRIPER is Dickens' story of the chance meetings of strangers who move from Victorian London to southern France. New widow Mrs. Lirriper devotes herself to her lodgers - but when she inherits an abandoned baby, her responsibilities involve her lodgers in mystery as much as child-rearing efforts.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Great spoof of A Christmas Carol...one laugh after another. Mrs. Cratchit gets fed up with being poor and having so many kids and decides to drink a couple of pints and jump into the Thames. This is of course a foiled plan because in the end Scrooge saves the day, after the soul singing angel of death shows him the error of his ways. It's freaking hilarious how the script essentially mirrors the old Scrooge tale but in a dry, witty way. I'm going to direct it for my December high school play this year.

As an English teacher, whenever I have looked for material on Dickens, I have always checked to see what it says about Dickens' boyhood, which was the source of his art, his activism, and his "ghosts." Moreover, I have more than once wished that I could have seen Dickens live on stage acting out scenes from his novels, pouring heart and soul into the performances as his biographers have so often detailed. So you can imagine my delight to find this gem by Simon Callow, who appears as Dickens in a one-man show similar to those Dickens himself would have done in London, Edinburgh, and elsewhere. Callow has made Dickens come alive more than any written biography could do. He narrates the life of Dickens from boyhood to death, moving flawlessly between biographical material and excerpts from the novels to show the biographical elements of many of Dickens' works. His depiction of the personality, accent, facial expression, and body language of the panoply of Dickens' creations, not to mention Dickens himself, is amazing. No student could come away from this video and say they had not seen or did not understand Dickens. I also appreciate the way Callow handles Dickens' troubled marriage, his idealization of his dying 17-year-old sister-in-law, and his infatuation with the young Ellen Ternan. We come away viewing Dickens not as some roving-eyed dandy, as post-modern critics often do, but as a deeply scarred man looking for the lost ideal. I will definitely show this to students everytime I teach Dickens in the future. Its intermission between Acts I and II makes it possible to split the viewing into two class periods. If less time were available, a teacher would find Act I very satisfactory as a one-period, stand-alone piece.

This is a very funny novel in some sections. Imagine an older Oliver Twist, about 19 or 20 or so, but handsome, and with a temper, and with a strong outgoing personality, and one who can act and do all kinds of things. He has lots of self confidence and a beautiful sister, and throw in an obnoxious and rich uncle and a dotty mother. Yes, it is very, very entertaining.

I bought the Wordsworth Classic version but would recommend the Penguin Classic version, and recommend that purchase highly. This is among Dickens's somewhat forgotten novel but still among his best. It is another masterpiece that brings together all of Dickens's writing skills with a great story. I would rate it slightly behind David Copperfield but it remains one of the most original and interesting of Dickens's novels somewhat on par with Oliver Twist.

As background information, I am in the process of reading most of Dickens's 22 novels and longer short stories, and set up a Listmania list. As a suggestion, avoid the Penguin Popular Classics with the plain green covers (I bought two). They fall apart and do not stand up to a read, especially books over 500 pages in length. The Regular Penguin Classics with the photo or painting on the front are excellent and some have maps and illustrations (drawings). The Wordsworth Classics are not as good, and some are illustrated.

A young Dickens at the age of 12 had the unenviable job of attaching labels 10 hours a day at the Warren's boot blacking factory. That experience shaped much of his writing career. Still in his teens he became a law clerk, then later in his twenties a journalist. The last job as a reporter led to the serialized writing of his novels. His works were social commentaries with larger than life characters, or colorful caricatures, living in the slums of London. He was a critic of poverty, social injustice, and the slow moving court system.

All of Dickens's experiences come together in his novels. The Pickwick Papers, his first novel, is mostly humorous. But the next one, Oliver Twist, is a dark novel set in the crime plagued streets of early 19th century London. Next in novel number three, he changes back to a more humorous novel which is the present work. This is a big novel, about 750 pages or so - but the pages fly by. The protagonists are Nicholas, who is almost 20, his sister Kate, a few years younger, and his uncle Ralph Nickleby. Their father has died and Nicholas and Kate come to London with their mother to seek aid from the wealthy uncle. The uncle finds them minimum paying jobs, and that creates a good story. It is a novel with many common features that we expect from Dickens with things such as a school where the children are beaten, but it has many funny parts and it is complicated by the uncle's financial dealings.

Having read many of Dickens's novels I still rate David Copperfield as best as a work of literature and rate Oliver Twist as close behind and a must read. The latter book was read by Queen Victoria and Karl Marx, and both enjoyed the read. The novel had a far reaching social impact. Nicholas Nickleby is another gem and well worth the read, but lacks the social bite of Oliver Twist, and lacks the enthusiasm of David Copperfield, but it is hilarious.

I like to read about exploring and hunting in Africa, authors like Ruark, Capstick, & Hemingway. The reason I hunted down this book is because Hemingway said it was the best book he ever read about Africa. I figured he would know.

I enjoyed this book immensely. Baker describes his explorations, hunting expeditions, and encounters with the natives in experiences that now can only be dreamed about. He talks about his extensive hunting trips with the Hamram Arabs, who hunted elephants with swords from horseback. He tells about traveling hundreds of miles on the backs of camels, and about rescuing one pack camel that had fallen off the side of a cliff by wrapping ropes around it and lowering it to the bottom of the canyon. Even much of the day to day camp life is very interesting, as the party had to provide for all of their needs for themselves.

It is worth noting, that apparently modern readers must be somewhat put off by a supposed tone of superiority. One reviewer indicates this way, and in the version I have, the publisher actually attempts a vague apology on the back of the book. I didn't notice anything in Sir Samuel Baker's tone, but if someone can read this book and not conclude from the narrative that Baker actually is superior to the vast majority of mortals, they must have a better imagination than I do.

One of the most interesting aspects of Baker's explorations is that he had his wife, Lady Florence, with him the entire time. One of my favorite stories is about a night when he was awakened by a gentle tug on his sleeve, which was always his wife's signal that something was wrong. Without rolling over he reached under his cot and got his rifle first, and then his wife indicated that a hyena had just stuck it's head in the door of the tent. He waited a few minutes, and when the hyena took another look, he dispatched it there in the tent in the middle of the night.

If you like to read about Africa, or about exploration, hunting, or high adventure, I think you will enjoy this book very much.

I recently reread Oliver Twist and was quite surprised as to how faithful the musical "Oliver" and also several film adaptions are to this story originally written in the 1830's. Obviously there are minor difference but it is tough for even Broadway and Hollywood to diminish a good story. Sure Oliver Twist is sentimental and melodramatic and loose plot ends are tied up ever so neatly but it still has something to say to the 21st century. Poverty,crime,homelessness,and corrupt government officials still plague us today as there is no change in basic human nature. Dickens preaches to us about these evils but he does it so humorously that the hammer with which he hits us over the head leaves us improved rather than wounded.

I am a learning english student and before I read this book I was very dobtful about the quality of all english courses. This book was written by the one of the biggest english writers and retold by Richard Rogers. The retolder obtained the same dinamic and energy from Dickens. I think no english course can be good whitout learn with the great masters even in my case, that I am an intermediate student. The retold books can be the best way to improve your english and expand the students culture.