Charles Dickens Books

This book is truly wonderful! I admit that when given the assignment to read this for my college novel class, I was a little turned off, but once started, it is magnificent. Dickens was told when he was starting out his career in writing to "Make em laugh, make em cry, make em wait" and he certainly employs this tactic. It is really one of the most superior classics!Read it, I know you'll love it!!!

I would recomend this book from any teen to adult. I first read this book as a freshmen in high school and I thoroughly enjoyed it. This was my third time reading it and I couldn't put it down. You get into the life of all of the characters and you go through their happiness and pain.

this book is very difficult to read. you need to have a lot of patience, for it takes about 100 words for Dickens to make a point in his book. the story is very well written and the descriptions about life in london and Paris at the time of the French revolution are well depicted. I just think that Dickens needed to speed up his novel, and probably it would have had a better succes.

Chesterton is indeed at his best writing about Dickens. Before you buy this edition, be forewarned that the editors have cut almost 20pp. from Chesterton's introduction, leaving a mere 2pp.

Chesterton is at his best in his criticism, and this is no exception. His novels show something o the Dickensian flare, but nowhere is he more apreciative of the master than here.

AS A GRADE 11 STUDENT, I AM EXPECTED TO MOAN AND COMPLAIN ABOUT A SEEMINGLY LONG AND BORING NOVEL THAT I AM REQUIRED TO READ IN MY ENGLISH CLASS.... INSTEAD, I FOUND THAT THIS NOVEL WAS THE FIRST THAT DARED TO REALLY DIG DEEP DOWN INTO THE MORAL AND ETHICAL VALUES OF HUMEN BEINGS. THIS NOVEL REVEALS THE TRUTH ABOUT THE STRONG, THE WEAK, THE RICH, THE POOR, AND THOSE WHO ARE FALSE, AND THOSE WHO ARE TRUE. I BELIEVE THAT THIS NOVEL IS AN INVESTMENT OF TIME THAT EVERYONE SHOULD LOOK INTO... IT'S WELL WORTH IT!!!

Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, is a great story for just about anyone who has the time. From Pip's thoughts and fears, to his hopes and desires, the reader is left waiting for the outcome. This novel is a good-read, but it takes awhile to get involved. Be patient; the wait is most definitely worth the while. Charles Dickens manages to wholly fulfill the title, which is a major theme throughout the book. Enjoy!

This is a good production of a classic work. It seems to capture the "feel" of the story (as I understand it), but not with the impact that I expected. Probably too graphic for younger children.

I was a young boy the first time my mom read Charles Dickens' classic A CHRISTMAS CAROL to my family. Over the years, it has become an established part of my Christmas traditions, with several versions potentially filling the bill for my consumption each year. This year, I decided to listen to this full cast radio drama version.

The story is the same old one we have grown to love. Scrooge is a miser in 1840's London. He has no use for Christmas or human emotion of any kind. The only thing he cares about is earning more money. One Christmas Eve, he is visited by the spirit of his dead business partner. Jacob Marley has come back to warn Scrooge about the dangers of continuing his miserly ways. To further help Scrooge, Marley promises the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Future will visit him. But will this be enough to reform Scrooge?

I'll admit, it's been years since I actually read the book, so I can't offer a point by point analysis of how this 90 minute radio drama adaptation compares to the book. I will say that there were several scenes with the Ghost of Christmas Past I didn't remember hearing before, but I liked them as they helped us show the progression of Scrooge's character from the youth to the miser. My biggest problem story purity wise was with the Ghost of Christmas Future. They actually give him a voice. It was perfectly creepy and fit the character well. In addition, they give him as few lines as they possibly can. But since they had a narrator, I wish they had stuck with the voiceless Spirit of the original.

This isn't to say this version is bad. The actors do a great job making the characters come to life. The sound effects and original score further help tell the story. At times, in an attempt to show a character was in another room, the characters were a little hard to hear, however. This was only a problem in a few scenes. Overall, the spirit of the original is perfectly captured by this retelling.

One addition I really liked was David Suchet as the host. His parts surround the story and help put it in its proper historic context. I had forgotten just what was happening in England that prompted Dickens to write this story, and the reminder made me see it with fresh eyes.

While not perfect, this is still a great version of a classic Christmas tale. It will introduce kids to the story and hold the entire family's attention during any long holiday trip.

Honestly, if you take the time and effort to read the actual novel, it is so well worth it other than these illustrated editions.

I guess it is good for kids, makes Dickens easier to handle, but I do not think kids really need to be handling Dickens. The only real reason to read Dickens is to appreciate his beautiful sentences, and kids won't really get that aspect.

If you really want kids to read Dickens, read it to them and make it exciting and fun for them.

This first volume of the new 'Classics Illustrated' series provides graphic novelist Rick Geary's adaptation of Dickens' classic novel, using an all-color graphic novel format to reveal politics, morals and virtues. Fans of the comic book series which took literary classics and popularized them will find this approach translates well to book form, providing something new for young readers.

I just finished reading DC, and although I enjoyed it, I was also heartily glad to be finished. The Victorian ideals did not wear well through such a long novel. I began to feel that Dicken's emotional values were creepy.

To me, Dickens showed himself in this book to be primarily concerned with moral education. He is holding up various models to the reader, in order to `form their character', although ironically, efforts to do so in the book are either evil (the Murdstones) or useless (David trying to give his bird-brained wife some character). Yet this is Dicken's passion: to teach us to be affectionate above all, utterly selfless, incapable of self-assertion (the highest praise he gives to Traddles and his perfect wife Sophy), simple as the madman Dick, kind and patient. These are Christian virtues, and yet religion per se is virtually absent in the book - oddly so, given how steeped it is in Christian self-abnegation and kindness. I almost wonder if Dickens were antireligious; I assume he was anticlerical given his critique of most social institutions. Yet Dickens himself is not so much a student of the human heart as a preacher. All his characters are there to teach a lesson.

Yet he carries you along as the reader with the pleasantness of his loving characters, the fun of the eccentric characters, and his powers of careful observation, which brings even cartoon-thin portrayals to life through original detail. His plot moves along, with many exciting incidents. He seems a primitive writer by todays standards, signaling crudely plot developments to come, and ham fistedly signaling what characters we are to admire, to pity or to loathe. All is done is broad strokes. At times his social satire and humor leaven the work. But mostly, it is his own goodness - his wish for happy, loving, tolerant relations, his desire to improve the world, that cast a pleasant glow on the work.

Still, three quarters through the book I perversely declared myself to be on Uriah Heep's side, and refused to let Dickens bludgeon me into believing Heep is evil. For what is Heep's overarching sin? The nightmare of Victorian society (of which Dickens professes to be critical in so many regards). Why, Heep is ambitious, he is upwardly mobile, he rebels against being `umble.' Dicken's paints Heep's means to success in wholly black colors - all rage and spite and jealousy and meanness, all cheating and blackguardery. But that is because this refusal to stay happily in one's place can have no positive colors in Dicken's imagination. (His own driving ambition as a writer did not make it into these pages.)

My favorite character is the Aunt, and my favorite scene, David's birth, when she puts cotton in her ears not to hear the mother's birth pains. I enjoyed the virtuous and happy fisherfolk, especially their cosy cottage which is an overturned boat, despite feeling it was awfully contrived, . The Happy Lower Classes, More Virtuous Than their Betters.

Most of the women characters lacked interest, and none won my empathy. (Dickens got me to cry more than once, but I can't say I really cared about his characters, not even David.) Agnes the Angel was too much Patient Griselda; Emily the fallen angel saved by forgiveness never came to life; the wicked women were flat as cardboard. I didn't believe in everyone's fondness for DC's `child-bride' because self-involved, vain, immature, shallow and lazy people - as she was - are not endearing, affectionate, and beloved. They are hard to take. I don't know if Dicken's was holding up a social ideal of the childish, spoiled woman, and trying gently to lead his readers to see her as inadequate.

Speaking of which, Dicken's himself definitely has a creepy repeated imaginative theme here about love and sex being mixed into father-daughter relations: we are given a beautiful love match between the old Doctor, seemingly 30 or even 40 years older than his lower class wife, who actually calls him her husband and father; Agnes replacing her mother in relation to her father; DC's `child-bride'; Emily and her clinging to her Uncle, and eventually foreswearing marriage to live with him. Traddle's and his wife are similar in age, but she is presented as a mother before marriage, taking care of her invalid mother and brood of 8. The only romance between those equal in age happens off-stage and is tragic, illicit and evil: Emily being seduced by DC's friend Steerforth. ( I wonder if when Dicken's left his wife and ten children for an actress, 8 years after this book was written, was the actress was 30 years younger? Answer - yes. She was 18 and he lived out the part of Steerforth himself. No wonder he has David being so tolerant of Steerforths ruining an entire family's happiness by his sexual predation of a young girl.)

The Micawbers again did not win me over - a pontificating loser of a lush, willing to ruin poor Traddles - yet we are to forgive him completely because, why? (Turns out he is modeled on Dicken's father.)

Which brings me to DC himself. DC is an anti-hero in 20th century terms: although he does eventually choose and embark on his own career as stenographer and then writer, the writer's amition and hard work is largely off-stage. What is on-stage is a person who relies on the kindness of others, who has no gumption or ambition, who is kind and dutiful and appreciative, who can't even assert himself with servants who steal his very clothes, and bursts into tears every other chapter if not more often. He chooses very stupidly in love, falling for a pretty face with an empty head (rather like his mother, but worse). As a child he is utterly helpless every time anyone wants to victimize him - not a resourceful impulse, let alone action - we are supposed to love him for his innocence and helplessness, but I would prefer a kid with quicker wits, more intiative, more courage, quicker fists, who solved some of his own problems

Holden Caulfield told us that he wasn't going to go into all the David Copperfield kind of crap on the first page in The Catcher in the Rye. After reading David Copperfield, I understood exactly what he meant.

My praise of David Copperfield goes more to the writer and his writing than to the story itself. I found some of the characters, especially Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep (one being a little too long in the tooth and one being a little too `umble), though important to the story, tolerated far longer than any sane person would have been able to do. But by no means do they diminish the other wonderful characters or the over-all masterpiece.

From the first page, the narrator grabs you with a gentle tug and holds you there until the last word is read. Most of the characters are never forced upon you. They enter, leave, and re-enter the story as a pleasant breeze might pass through a room. Your heart breaks as young David's draconian childhood is told. But, it gradually heals as Dickens' words flow from the pages bringing through a life that will make you laugh, cheer, and cry.

David Copperfield was beautifully written and it was beautifully told.

I must confess to never having read the unfinished "Mystery of Edwin Drood", so I really don't know if the characters met in this book, and their actions as described by varous narrators, are true to the original story. All I can say is that this author does a rather good job in weaving together all of the incidents from the Dickens book into his, and then departing from there, giving the case over into the capable hands of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. There's a lot of tooing and froing, and in the end the "mystery" appears to be solved. My only quibble with the book is that the solution appears too easily obtained, and not really adequately explained either by Holmes, or the author. Anyway, it's a short book and useful for passing a few pleasant hours wirh our favorite British consulting detective.

When Sherlock Holmes gets a visit from a strange old man who tells him of a disappearance and possible murder, Holmes agrees to take on the case. However, when he and Dr. Watson journey to the scene of the events, they are surprised to find out that the disappearance happened not one year ago (in 1894), but 25 years ago! But, there is a deep mystery here that only Holmes can get to the bottom of, and nothing will dissuade him from learning just what happened to Edwin Drood!

In 1870, Charles Dickens died with his last book unfinished. In the Mystery of Edwin Drood, a young man disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and another young man is accused of murder. In 1991, author and historian Peter Rowland decided that the way to solve this literary mystery by turning literature's greatest sleuth loose on it - Sherlock Holmes.

Overall, I found this to be a very interesting story. Mr. Rowland did a good job of catching the feel of the original Sherlock Holmes story, which makes the book good for any Holmes fan (such as myself). My one complaint here is that the author slipped in a quick paranormal scene, which is quite out of keeping with the Holmes canon.

But, that said, I did enjoy this book, and am very glad that I read it. Is it necessary to read Dickens' original story before reading this book? No, it's not necessary, the story is entirely self-contained. So, let me just say that I enjoyed this book, and I highly recommend it to all fans of Sherlock Holmes.

Written by the great-grandson of Charles Dickens, Drinking with Dickens is of interest mainly to devotees of the novelist. Liberally called a 'sketch' by the author, it is loosely constructed and the organization haphazard. That said, the writing is lively and it's fun to join Cedric on his drinking adventures.

The best feature of this book is the recipes. All drinks mentioned in the novels are incuded. Other recipes come directly from Georgina Hogarth, Charles Dickens's sister-in-law who managed Gads Hill (his last residence). An index allows the reader to quickly find the recipes, as they are scattered throughout the text.

Features numerous drinking-related illustrations and quotes from the novels. Other contents include: backgrounds to drinks and their social significance in Victorian England, a ranking of Dickens's drinking characters, and the sale list of the Gads Hill wine cellar.

I bought this because I enjoy making and tasting cocktails and interesting drinks. We are having a lot of fun with this book although our knowledge of Dickens is a bit sketchy - we've only read a few of the more famous Dicken's books as requirements in middle school years and years ago. If you are a real Dickens fan I would say this book is a "must have."

This is a short collection of recipes (~110 pages including around 69 recipes) that give an unusual window into the world of Dickensian England, along with a chatty text in a friendly victorian style and great period illustrations. The contents of Dicken's personal wine cellar is given along with the recipes, the recipes are clearly written and fairly easy to follow, information is given on making adjustments from older stronger spirits and older measurements to the modern equivalents. Some of the recipes are quite good - like the Dog's Nose [ hot stout, gin, brown sugar & nutmeg], and some require weeks of aging ("Bishop" and "Milk Punch"), some have to be burned - its quite different from your typical cocktail book. I can't tell you yet how they taste, but its been fun to spend rainy days in the kitchen 'concocting'.

My only criticism of this book is that it is quite short.

Despite the description, this is ONLY ONE STORY.

It was, admittedly, a good story... but the description said it was all of Dickens' mysteries together. Now one could argue that that is true if all he wrote was one... but even if that was true it still seems misleading...

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.

If Charles Dickens had lived to finish this, this book would probably have been a phenomenal masterpiece. (Sadly, it was not to be.) The material that he did manage to write displays some of his best abilities. We meet John Jasper who does a lot of good work at the cathedral. He also instructs the young Rosa in music. Edwin Drood (John Jasper's nephew who is 20 and only 6 years younger than his uncle) and Rosa are to marry. But they start to get cold feet when they realize that it is at least possible that they are getting married because everyone expects them to. We also meet Durdles who is a grave stone maker who ironically lives in a: "...little antiquated hole of a house that was never finished." He and John Jasper start to become friends. (Interesting.) We then meet Helena and Neville Landless. By his own confession, Neville is: "...false and mean." Later, Rosa confesses she is afraid of John Jasper. (He seems to be paying too much attention to her during her music lessons.) In an interesting scene Neville and Edwin start to fight, and Jasper alternates between trying to provoke it and cease it. We then meet the eccentric, but virtuous lawyer Mr. Grewgious. He has come to see Rosa to discuss the terms of her father's will. And again, Rosa is starting to realize the wedding is somewhat prearranged: "My poor papa and Eddy's father made their agreement together." The final straw is when Edwin realizes that he is to use the same wedding ring that Rosa's deceased mother wore. Interestingly, many scenes of graveyards are presented in this final and unfinished work of Dickens. Durdles in fact talks of a disturbing dream. Well, Rosa and Edwin agree to put things on hold and think about the decision more carefully. With good symbolism, Dickens presents us with a storm to foreshadow some bad events. Edwin disappears and John Jasper blames or at least makes a show that he blames Neville. Did John Jasper murder Edwin and set Neville up to take the fall? We don't know, and we never will. Though it does seem just a bit too obvious. (Only 2 novels earlier, in his "Great Expectations" Dickens did a great job of misleading us into thinking Miss Havisham was Pip's benefactor when it turned out to be Magwitch.) Interestingly, Jasper seems to grow upset when he hears that Rosa and Edwin had put their wedding plans on hold. (Again, this would lead us to believe that Jasper is thinking he could have had Rosa without foul play, but we don't know and we never will.) Interestingly, Jasper himself admits that Edwin disappeared and may still be alive. (But we never see him again.) We can only speculate that Dickens may have intended to bring Edwin back. (Somewhat like he did to Walter in "Dombey and Son." Walter was presumed drowned, but he did survive and live to marry Dombey's daughter and be part of the happy ending.) Well, later the Reverend Crisparkle finds Edwin's watch at the bottom of the icy river. (So we at least know that Edwin was probably assaulted, but we will never know if he is alive or dead. We can only speculate.) Neville is released, but he is suffering the damage of a ruined reputation. (Even when one is judged innocent of murder, suspicion still lingers in people's minds.) Jasper again meets with Durdles. We can not help but wonder why Jasper seems so close to a man who makes grave stones. (The obvious reason is of course that if he were to perform murder, it may be of use to have a friend who can provide a few graveyard favors.) Jasper then admits his feelings for Rosa, and she is of course horrified. Naturally, this leads Rosa to suspect that Jasper murdered Edwin to get to her. But again, there are questions. If he was guilty of murdering Edwin, why does he risk revealing a motive when the heat from Edwin's disappearance is still hot? And especially when Neville has just been released? In terror, Rosa runs to the eccentric, but virtuous lawyer Mr. Grewgious. (Why not? If he is a lawyer who has served her family well, Rosa knows everything she tells him is confidential.) The benevolent Grewgious offers her sanctuary and then puts her up in an apartment at least until he can figure out more about the situation. Grewgious begins to dislike Jasper. So, Jasper has a motive, indications of a murder have been shown (the finding of the watch), and the hero Mr. Grewgious starts to suspect Jasper. Cut and dry case? Not on your life! A new character enters just as the book ends. And it is impossible to doubt this new character would have had some major influence in the events of this story. Sadly, we never will know how this was to end. But if we can get past this, the material that WAS written does show some of Dickens's strongest work. Enjoy your everlasting peace Mr. Dickens.

Set in Cloisterham, a cathedral town, Dickens's final novel, unfinished, introduces two elements unusual for Dickens--opium-eating and the church. In the opening scene, John Jasper, music teacher and soloist in the cathedral choir, awakens from an opium trance in a flat with two other semi-conscious men and their supplier, an old woman named Puffer, and then hurries off to daily vespers.

Jasper, aged twenty-six, is the uncle and guardian of Edwin Drood, only a few years younger. Drood has been the fiancé of Rosa Bud for most of his life, an arrangement made by his and Rosa's deceased fathers to honor their friendship, and the wedding is expected within the year. Jasper, Rosa's music teacher, is secretly in love with her, though she finds him repellent.

When two orphans, Helena and Neville Landless, arrive in Cloisterham, Helena and Rosa become friends, and Neville finds himself strongly attracted to the lovely Rosa. Ultimately, the hot-tempered Neville and Drood have a terrible argument in which Neville threatens Drood before leaving town on a walking trip. Drood vanishes the same day. Apprehended on his trip, Neville is questioned about Drood's disappearance, and Jasper accuses him of murder.

Tightly organized to this point, the novel shows Jasper himself to be a prime suspect, someone who could have engineered the evidence against Neville, but Dickens unexpectedly introduces some new characters at this point--the mysterious Dick Datchery and Tartar, an old friend of Rev. Mr. Crisparkle, minor canon at the cathedral. Puffer, the opium woman, is reintroduced and appears set to play a greater role, since she solicits information from the semi-conscious Jasper and secretly follows him. This is the halfway point in the projected novel, and Dickens clearly planned to develop these new (or reintroduced) characters to deepen the mystery.

More modern in many ways than his previous novels, the characters here are not simple stereotypes--some are good people who have real flaws and make mistakes. Dickens's tying of Jasper to the church choir, where he was a soloist, suggests some examination of the theme of hypocrisy, in which the good Mr. Crisparkle would be Jasper's antithesis. The opium scenes, vividly drawn, carry the unusual suggestion that opium leads to a kind of intoxication similar to that of alcohol, and Dicken does not use these scenes to offer dire warnings about the drug--at least at this point. Especially intriguing because it is unfinished, this novel continues to fascinate mystery lovers and literary scholars more than a century after its first publication. Mary Whipple

Bleak House (Signet Classics)
Barnaby Rudge (Penguin Classics)
Hard Times