Charles Dickens Books

Dover's collections of ghost, horror, and mystery stories are among the best deals in the paperback book world. I read this volume around Halloween, and it made what little hair I have left curl and vanish. The quality of the individual stories varies greatly, with the best being "Wandering Willie's Tale" by Sir Walter Scott, "Doctor Heidegger's Experiment" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the much-anthologized "The Horla" by Guy de Maupassant. Also included is the classic "The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs and "Dracula's Guest" by Bram Stoker. In all, there are eighteen different stories by sixteen authors.

My copy of the book was purchased some many years ago and still looks great for a paperback, so you don't have to feel any compunctions buying a used copy in good condition.

This book will give you many hours of scary enjoyment. What more can I say?

One cannot help but notice that in 19th Century English literature a lot of drinking (and eating) is the order of the day. Especially in the works of Charles Dickens, one is either in the local, gin shop, or having a "cordial" in a character's house. Convivial Dickens is the reference guide to the waxing and waning popularity of beer, gin and mixed drinks in Victorian England-specifically the England of Dickens. Each chapter covers a specific drink, beer or gin for example, gives the story of its popularization/decline, and includes recipes taken directly from 19th Century bartending guides. These allow the reader to do some "research" on their own, to fully enjoy the atmosphere of the times.
A pretty useful companion to any of Dickens' works, recommended.

Miller's famous 1989 study of the Victorian novel through the lens of Foucauldian ideas about surveillance and sexuality is one of the most brilliant studies in the field--its readings of Collins, Trollope, and Dickens have become definitive. The work suffers only from its author's vanity: the references to his personal life seem cutesy and don't add much to the study (they detract from it). Otherwise this is the best study of the Victorian novel in decades.

This book covers the work of Charles Dickens and film, however beware that the book was published in 1977, so many later (and often better) film adaptations of Dickens work (i.e. BBC's Our Mutual Friend, and the 1984 A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott) are not covered. Also, the book typeset is that of a typewriter manuscript in a small font that apparently was just photocopied by the publisher. With these beefs aside, the book is valuable for its insights into Victorian society and the approach of Dickens in his novels. It is also helpful if you are writing a college paper.

There is an irony about this book that perhaps the author is well aware of. He dissects extensively Dickens' works. Going beyond looking at comic scenes, in finding sombre implications under the superficialities. Of all things, this is not a comical text. Kincaid's analysis is commendable and thorough. So much so that he strips away any veneer of light hearted comedy that was present in the first place. Showing Dickens' preoccupation with such matters as social commentary on the Britain of his time.

Naturally, the book presupposes you've read all the major Dickens novels. Rather unintelligible otherwise.

I quite enjoyed this rather obscure collection of travel essays by Charles Dickens. Despite my familiarity with Dickens the novelist, I was unacquainted with Dickens the essayist. This new Dickens was surprisingly humorous and witty.

I recommend without reservations this little collection with its lengthy title: Dickens in France, Selected Pieces by Charles Dickens on France and the French. Not a travel guide, nor a cultural study, Dickens' essays would be best characterized as delightfully humorous travel memoirs.

Contents: Going Through France (from Pictures from Italy), The Calais Night Mail and Traveling Abroad (both from The Uncommercial Traveller), and A Flight and Our French Watering-Place (both from Reprinted Pieces). There are also some short extracts from Dickens' correspondence.

Going Through France begins in Paris as the Dickens family leaves by carriage for vacation in Italy. Dickens is only marginally concerned with geographic features. His interest is people. We meet his family's personal tour guide, their effusive innkeeper, and a chance encounter, the She-Goblin - a little old swarthy woman with flashing black eyes that enthusiastically and dramatically described the details of the Inquisition in Avignon.

The Calais Night Mail: Dickens knows that he has little liking for Calais, and yet as his seasickness worsens he anxiously peers into the darkness. "Sentiments of forgiveness of Calais, not to say attachment to Calais, begin to expand in my bosom. I have weak notions that I will stay there a day or two on my way back."

A Flight: Leaving London, corn-sheaves, hop-gardens, reapers, gleaners, apple-orchards, and cherry-orchards fly past Dickens' compartment window on the South Eastern Railway Company Express Train. In this essay Dickens shares his amazement: Paris in only eleven hours!

Other literary travel guides and memoirs: I recommend Italian Backgrounds (Edith Wharton), The Face of Spain (Gerald Brenan), and Augustus Hare in Italy. No two are alike in style or substance or period, and Dickens in France continues this pattern, or lack of pattern. All make fascinating reading.

Dickens's career as a journalist spanned four decades, during which he wrote over 350 articles: reports, sketches, reviews, leaders, exposés, satires and reminiscences. This in-depth study offers the first critical guide to over a million words of vintage Dickens, which have been much overlooked in continuous assessments and re-assessments of his novels. It provides both a biographical and socio-historical account of the main phases of Dickens's career as a journalist, and a critical assessment of the thematic and stylistic development of his work.

Contents:
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Copying and Reporting Life (1830-33)
Chronicling and Sketching Life (1834-36)
'Boz' as 'Editor' (1837-41)
Travelling, Skirmishing, and Sharp-shooting (1841-44) Launching The Daily News (1845-46)
Reviewing The Examiner (1848-49)
Editing Life: Household Words (1850-59)
Publishing and Recalling Life: All the Year Round (1859-70)
Dickens the Journalist: Models, Modes and Media
Special Correspondence: Reading Dickens's Journalism
Endnotes
Bibliography and Abbreviations
Index

Author Biography:
John Drewis Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Buckingham. He edited, with Michael Slater, the final volume of the Dent Uniform Edition of Dickens's Journalism (2000), and has recently edited Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray (2001). His doctoral thesis was on The Uncommercial Traveller, and he has also published a number of articles and reviews on aspects of Victorian journalism in The Dickensian and Dickens Quarterly.

DICKENS: HIS WORK AND HIS WORLD by Michael Rosen is a nice introduction to Charles Dickens life and works. The book does a great job of placing both into their proper context.

The book is divided into five chapters. Chapter one "The Tour" gives a brief overview of Charles Dickens. It provides a glimpse into his talents performing in front of audiences and serves as an introduction as to WHY Dickens is so memorable. Chapter two "The Life" provides the reader a biographical summary of Dickens' life. "Great writers aren't often people born into some special family, nor are they necessarily very rich or very clever or very lucky. They're not always people who have seen or heard hundreds of amazing or odd things. But a great writer has to be someone who spends a good deal of time watching, listening, and wondering--and a good deal more time telling us about it" (12). Chapter Three "London" provides the reader with a description of the world in which Dickens lived and wrote. It discusses the cultural and political as well as physical environment in which he wrote. Chapter Four "The Work" discusses four literary masterpieces: A CHRISTMAS CAROL, OLIVER TRIST, DAVID COPPERFIELD, and GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Rosen devotes most of the chapter to his in-depth analysis of GREAT EXPECTATIONS. Chapter Five "Legacy" is a summary of why Dickens is still relevant to today's culture. The book concludes with a thorough timeline and index. (There is not a bibliography).

Throughout DICKENS: HIS WORK AND HIS WORLD are one and two-page illustrations by Robert Ingpen, winner of the Hans Christian Andersen medal for illustration in 1986, which are magnificent.

Rosen's style is conversational. He writes directly to the reader, often asking the reader to join in his questions and become involved in the text.

i like the book mickeys christmas carol. Its a good book to read because it talks about giving money to the poor. It also shows a ghost coming and changing a bad person into a good person. Every child should read this book

"Hard Times" is a minor Charles Dickens classic. Like all Charles Dickens' novels it features some great, memorable characters. The setting of the industrial city of Coketown is vividly described as a miserable, polluted town. There are some strong themes of class struggles between the working men in the factories and the harsh upper classes who seek to exploit them. Nearly all of the upper class characters are depicted in a negative light while the real heroes of the story are from the working class. As always, Dickens finds an entertaining way to shine a bright light on the social problems of Victorian-era England. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and highly recommend it. However, if you are choosing your first introduction to Charles Dickens, then you should pick one of his better-known novels.