Charles Dickens
Список книг автора Charles DickensThe Charles Dickens Christmas MEGAPACK ®
The «Christmas Story» (often a «Christmas Ghost Story») was a popular Victorian tradition. Charles Dickens, who surely needs no introduction today, took part with gusto, penning dozens of Christmas tales (the most famous being «A Christmas Carol»). We are delighted to include not just the standard fare of «A Christmas Carol,» but a total of 25 great stories (more than 1,000 pages!) Dickens penned for Yuletide reading in this volume. Included are:<P> A CHRISTMAS CAROL<BR> THE CHIMES<BR> THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH<BR> THE BATTLE OF LIFE<BR> THE HAUNTED MAN AND THE GHOST'S BARGAIN<BR> A CHRISTMAS TREE<BR> NOBODY'S STORY<BR> THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY<BR> THE CHILD'S STORY<BR> THE POOR RELATION'S STORY<BR> THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS<BR> THE HOLLY-TREE—THREE BRANCHES<BR> THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY<BR> THE TRIAL FOR MURDER<BR> GOING INTO SOCIETY<BR> SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE<BR> MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS<BR> MRS LIRRIPER'S LEGACY<BR> DOCTOR MARIGOLD<BR> BARBOX BROTHERS<BR> BARBOX BROTHERS AND CO.<BR> THE BOY AT MUGBY<BR> THE SIGNAL-MAN<BR> NO THOROUGHFARE<BR> WHAT CHRISTMAS IS AS WE GROW OLDER<P> If you enjoy this book, search your favorite ebook store for «Wildside Press Megapack» to see the 170+ entries in the MEGAPACK™ series, covering science fiction, fantasy, horror, mysteries, westerns, classics, adventure stories, and much, much more!
Dickens' Christmas Spirits
This elegant edition gathers seven spirited Yuletide fables by Charles Dickens. The heartwarming tales tell of people rescued from their own folly by mysterious strangers — including goblins, ghosts, and other supernatural creatures. In addition to the author's most famous holiday tale, «A Christmas Carol,» this collection features «The Cricket on the Hearth,» «The Chimes,» «The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain,» «The Seven Poor Travellers,» «The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton,» and «The Holly-Tree.» Over sixty charming illustrations enhance this book, which will delight Dickens' fans as well as all lovers of Christmas stories.
A Christmas Carol
Rich in the imagery of nineteenth-century England, this literary classic celebrates a return to old-fashioned Christmas festivities while examining the crisis in one man's personal life. One of the most famous characters in literary history, Ebenezer Scrooge is the «grasping old sinner» who finds redemption after witnessing scenes from his life in which his greed, self-interest, and lack of compassion are revealed.Complementing the master storyteller's wise and witty prose are the timeless illustrations of Arthur Rackham, whose evocative artwork finds humor in Scrooge's miserly ways, depicting him as a cranky humbug who eventually relents and joins the merrymaking. Continuously in print since it was first published in 1843, Dickens's immortal tale is still relevant today, sending a message that cuts through the materialistic trappings of the holiday season and gets to its heart and soul. This illustrated edition stands as one of the most beautiful available.
Oliver Twist
Starved and mistreated, empty bowl in hand, the young hero musters the courage to approach his master, saying, «Please, sir, I want some more.» Oliver Twist's famous cry of the heart has resounded with readers since the novel's initial appearance in 1837, and the book remains a popular favorite with fans of all ages.Dickens was no stranger to the pain of hunger and the degradation of poverty. He poured his own youthful experience of Victorian London's unspeakable squalor into this realistic depiction of the link between destitution and crime. Oliver escapes his miserable servitude by running away to London, where he unwillingly but inevitably joins a scabrous gang of thieves. Masterminded by the loathsome Fagin, the underworld crew features some of Dickens' most memorable characters, including the juvenile pickpocket known as the Artful Dodger, the vicious Bill Sikes, and gentle Nancy, an angel of self-sacrifice.A profound social critic, Dickens introduced genteel readers to the problems of the poor in a way that had rarely been attempted before. This tale of the struggle between hope and cruelty continues to speak to modern audiences.
The Old Curiosity Shop
First published serially in 1840–41 in Dickens' own magazine, Master Humphrey's Clock, and in book form in 1841, The Old Curiosity Shop was an immediate popular success. The heart-wrenching story of Little Nell and her doting grandfather offered a rich amalgam of misery and malice, goodness and generosity, love and loyalty — all with a pervading veneer of sentimentality that greatly appealed to Victorian readers.As the story opens up, Nell and her grandfather are living behind his curiosity shop, which brings in barely a pittance. To improve Nell's prospects, her grandfather gambles at night and is soon in debt to the evil dwarf Quilp. When Quilp takes over the shop, Nell and her aged guardian abandon their home and roam the countryside, where they meet up with a diverse and vivid collection of wandering entertainers and traveling shows, jovial innkeepers, clerics, schoolmasters, and sharp-eyed con men. Relentlessly pursued by the avaricious Quilp, the two struggle to survive in a hostile world that often turns a cold shoulder, but nevertheless also includes people who treat them with kindness and compassion.The book has much to recommend it—it features a wonderfully picturesque cast of characters drawn with typical Dickensian flair, while the mean streets of Victorian London and the rustic charms of the English countryside are recreated in loving detail. Above all, the book offers a rich human drama of courage and perseverance in the face of adversity. Generations of readers have applauded Nell and the other plucky underdogs of the story as they oppose the vile and miserable actions of the evil and uncaring.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
A sense of impending evil hovers over a cathedral town, where one man, an outwardly respectable opium addict, is consumed with jealousy over the engagement of his nephew, Edwin Drood, to a lovely young lady. So enraged is he, that he even plots the younger man's murder. But Drood's sudden disappearance halts further scheming and leaves only one big mystery. What happened to Edwin Drood? And what became of his body?Unfinished at the time of his death, Charles Dickens's intriguing story has become all the more tantalizing for its lack of an ending, leaving a grim puzzle that avid readers, over the years, have tried to solve. A gem for lovers of murder mysteries and the legions of Dickens fans, The Mystery of Edwin Drood remains a gripping and haunting masterpiece.
The Haunted House
Revered as one of the greatest writers in the English language, Charles Dickens is celebrated for his masterful storytelling, comic genius, and remarkably memorable characters. His early novels, such as The Pickwick Papers and The Adventures of Oliver Twist, were originally published in monthly installments, capturing a growing audience that quickly spread from England to America. Two centuries later, his popularity endures as readers revel in the warm humanity of his tales of self-discovery—and delight in the annual tradition of revisiting his holiday stories.Following the tremendous success of A Christmas Carol in 1843, there was great demand for more tales of ghostly visitation, and the great Victorian storyteller happily obliged with spellbinding tales such as The Haunted House. The drama begins with a Yuletide gathering in an eerie country retreat that's rumored to be haunted. There, Dickens and his friends, including acclaimed authors Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins, take on the task of finding evidence of a supernatural presence in the house. When they reconvene at a Twelfth Night feast to review their findings, what will their stories reveal?
Hard Times
"My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else," proclaimed Charles Dickens in explaining the theme of this classic novel. Published in 1854, the story concerns one Thomas Gradgrind, a «fanatic of the demonstrable fact,» who raises his children, Tom and Louisa, in a stifling and arid atmosphere of grim practicality.Without a moral compass to guide them, the children sink into lives of desperation and despair, played out against the grim background of Coketown, a wretched community shadowed by an industrial behemoth. Louisa falls into a loveless marriage with Josiah Bouderby, a vulgar banker, while the unscrupulous Tom, totally lacking in principle, becomes a thief who frames an innocent man for his crime. Witnessing the degradation and downfall of his children, Gradgrind realizes that his own misguided principles have ruined their lives.Considered Dickens' harshest indictment of mid-19th-century industrial practices and their dehumanizing effects, this novel offers a fascinating tapestry of Victorian life, filled with the richness of detail, brilliant characterization, and passionate social concern that typify the novelist's finest creations.Of Dickens' work, the eminent Victorian critic John Ruskin had this to say: «He is entirely right in his main drift and purpose in every book he has written; and all of them, but especially Hard Times, should be studied with close and earnest care by persons interested in social questions.»
Great Expectations
In this unflaggingly suspenseful story of aspirations and moral redemption, humble, orphaned Pip, a ward of his short-tempered older sister and her husband, Joe, is apprenticed to the dirty work of the forge but dares to dream of becoming a gentleman. And, indeed, it seems as though that dream is destined to come to pass — because one day, under sudden and enigmatic circumstances, he finds himself in possession of «great expectations.» In telling Pip's story, Dickens traces a boy's path from a hardscrabble rural life to the teeming streets of 19th-century London, unfolding a gripping tale of crime and guilt, revenge and reward, and love and loss. Its compelling characters include Magwitch, the fearful and fearsome convict; Estella, whose beauty is excelled only by her haughtiness; and the embittered Miss Havisham, an eccentric jilted bride.Written in the last decade of Dickens' life, Great Expectations was praised widely and universally admired. It was his last great novel, and many critics believe it to be his finest. Readers and critics alike praised it for its masterful plot, which rises above the melodrama of some of his earlier works, and for its three-dimensional, psychologically realistic characters — characters much deeper and more interesting than the one-note caricatures of earlier novels. «In none of his other works,» wrote the reviewer in the 1861 Atlantic, «does he evince a shrewder insight into real life, and a cheaper perception and knowledge of what is called the world.» To Swinburne, the novel was unparalleled in all of English fiction, with defects «as nearly imperceptible as spots on the sun or shadows on a sunlit sea.» Shaw found it Dickens' «most completely perfect book.» Now this inexpensive edition invites modern readers to savor this timeless masterpiece, teeming with colorful characters, unexpected plot twists, and Dickens' vivid rendering of the vast tapestry of mid-Victorian England.
Great Expectations Thrift Study Edition
Includes the unabridged text of Dicken's classic novel plus a complete study guide that helps readers gain a thorough understanding of the work's content and context. The comprehensive guide includes chapter-by-chapter summaries, explanations and discussions of the plot, question-and-answer sections, author biography, analytical paper topics, list of characters, bibliography, and more.