Oliver Twist

Our Mutual Friend, Dickens' last complete novel, gives one of his most comprehensive and penetrating accounts of Victorian society. Its vision of a culture stifled by materialistic values emerges not just through its central narratives, but through its apparently incidental characters and scenes. The chief of its several plots centres on John Harmon who returns to England as his father's heir. He is believed drowned under suspicious circumstances - a situation convenient to his wish for anonymity until he can evaluate Bella Wilfer whom he must marry to secure his inheritance. The story is filled with colourful characters and incidents - the faded aristocrats and parvenus gathered at the Veneering's dinner table, Betty Higden and her terror of the workhouse and the greedy plottings of Silas...

With an Introduction and Notes by David Ellis, University of Kent at Canterbury. With Illustrations by R.Seymour, R.W. Buss and Hablot K. Browne (Phiz). The Pickwick Papers is Dickens' first novel and widely regarded as one of the major classics of comic writing in English. Originally serialised in monthly instalments, it quickly became a huge popular success with sales reaching 40,000 by the final part. In the century and a half since its first appearance, the characters of Mr Pickwick, Sam Weller and the whole of the Pickwickian crew have entered the consciousness of all who love English literature in general, and the works of Dickens in particular.

Unusually for Dickens, Hard Times is set, not in London, but in the imaginary mid-Victorian Northern industrial town of Coketown with its blackened factories, downtrodden workers and polluted environment. This is the soulless domain of the strict utilitarian Thomas Gradgrind and the heartless factory owner Josiah Bounderby. However human joy is not excluded thanks to 'Mr Sleary's Horse-Riding' circus, a gin-soaked and hilarious troupe of open-hearted and affectionate people who act as an antidote to all the drudgery and misery endured by the ordinary citizens of Coketown.

Little Dorrit is a classic tale of imprisonment, both literal and metaphorical, while Dickens' working title for the novel, Nobody's Fault, highlights its concern with personal responsibility in private and public life. Dickens' childhood experiences inform the vivid scenes in Marshalsea debtor's prison, while his adult perceptions of governmental failures shape his satirical picture of the Circumlocution Office. The novel's range of characters - the honest, the crooked, the selfish and the self-denying - offers a portrait of society about whose values Dickens had profound doubts. Little Dorrit is indisputably one of Dickens' finest works, written at the height of his powers. George Bernard Shaw called it ‘a masterpiece among masterpices’, a vedict shared by the novel's many admirers.

Following the success of Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby was hailed as a comic triumph and firmly established Dickens as a 'literary gentleman'. It has a full supporting cast of delectable characters that range from the iniquitous Wackford Squeers and his family, to the delightful Mrs Nickleby, taking in the eccentric Crummles and his travelling players, the Mantalinis, the Kenwigs and many more. Combining these with typically Dickensian elements of burlesque and farce, the novel is eminently suited to dramatic adaptation. So great was the impact as it left Dickens' pen that many pirated versions appeared in print before the original was even finished. Often neglected by critics, Nicholas Nickleby has never ceased to delight readers and is widely regarded as one of the...

With an Introduction and Notes by Peter Preston, University of Nottingham. Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz) and George Cruickshank. The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41), with its combination of the sentimental, the grotesque and the socially concerned, and its story of pursuit and courage, which sets the downtrodden and the plucky against the malevolent and the villainous, was an immediate popular success. Little Nell quickly became one of Dickens' most celebrated characters, who so captured the imagination of his readers that while the novel was being serialised, many of them wrote to him about her fate. Dickens was conscious of the ?many friends? the novel had won for him, and ?the many hearts it turned to me when they were full of private sorrow?, and it remains one of the most fami...

Bleak House is one of Dickens' finest achievements, establishing his reputation as a serious and mature novelist, as well as a brilliant comic writer. It is at once a complex mystery story that fully engages the reader in the work of detection, and an unforgettable indictment of an indifferent society. Its representations of a great city's underworld, and of the law's corruption and delay, draw upon the author's personal knowledge and experience. But it is his symbolic art that projects these things in a vision that embraces black comedy, cosmic farce, and tragic ruin. In a unique creative experiment, Dickens divides the narrative between his heroine, Esther Summerson, who is psychologically interesting in her own right, and an unnamed narrator whose perspective both complements and challe...

With an Introduction and Notes by Owen Knowles, University of Hull. Thackeray's upper-class Regency world is a noisy and jostling commercial fairground, predominantly driven by acquisitive greed and soulless materialism, in which the narrator himself plays a brilliantly versatile role as a serio-comic observer. Although subtitled A Novel without a Hero, Vanity Fair follows the fortunes of two contrasting but inter-linked lives: through the retiring Amelia Sedley and the brilliant Becky Sharp, Thackeray examines the position of women in an intensely exploitative male world. When Vanity Fair was published in 1848, Charlotte Brontë commented: ‘The more I read Thackeray’s works the more certain I am that he stands alone – alone in his sagacity, alone in his truth, alone in his feeling�...

With a new Introduction by Dr Cedric Watts, Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Sussex. Illustrations by Arthur Rackham A Christmas Carol has become a phenomenal touchstone of English festive fiction and an enduring favourite internationally. Repeatedly adapted, parodied, stages and filmed, this richly influential novella is powerfully vivid and infallibly moving. Scrooge himself, Marley?s ghost, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come: they live on unforgettably in this gripping story which combines Gothic horror, moral exhortation, exuberant comedy and surrealistic fantasy.

Introduction and Notes by David Blair, University of Kent at Canterbury. Set in the reign of Richard I, Coeur de Lion, Ivanhoe is packed with memorable incidents - sieges, ambushes and combats - and equally memorable characters: Cedric of Rotherwood, the die-hard Saxon; his ward Rowena; the fierce Templar knight, Sir Brian de Bois-Gilbert; the Jew, Isaac of York, and his beautiful, spirited daughter Rebecca; Wamba and Gurth, jester and swineherd respectively. Scott explores the conflicts between the Crown and the powerful Barons, between the Norman overlords and the conquered Saxons, and between Richard and his scheming brother, Prince John. At the same time he brings into the novel the legendary Robin Hood and his band, and creates a brilliant, colourful account of the age of chivalry wit...

Mr Dombey is a man obsessed with his firm. His son is groomed from birth to take his place within it, despite his visionary eccentricity and declining health. But Dombey also has a daughter, whose unfailing love for her father goes unreturned. 'Girls' said Mr Dombey, 'have nothing to do with Dombey and Son'. When Walter Gay, a young clerk in her father's office, rescues her from a bewildering experience in the streets of London, his unforgettable friends believe he is well on his way to receiving her hand in marriage and inheriting the company. It is to be a very different type of story.

Martin Chuzzlewit is Charles Dickens' comic masterpiece about which his biographer, Forster, noted that it marked a crucial phase in the author's development as he began to delve deeper into the 'springs of character'. Old Martin Chuzzlewit, tormented by the greed and selfishness of his family, effectively drives his grandson, young Martin, to undertake a voyage to America. It is a voyage which will have crucial consequences not only for young Martin, but also for his grandfather and his grandfather's servant, Mary Graham with whom young Martin is in love. The commercial swindle of the Anglo-Bengalee company and the fraudulent Eden Land Corporation have a topicality in our own time.

Klub Pickwicka to powieść Charlesa Dickensa, która została pierwotnie opublikowana w formie odcinków w latach 1836-1837. Jest to jedno z najwcześniejszych dzieł tego autora. Nazwa powieści odnosi się do fikcyjnego klubu literackiego o nazwie Klub Pickwicka, którego członkowie podróżują przez Anglię, doświadczając różnych przygód i zawirowań. Komedia obyczajowa, która stanowi satyrę na społeczeństwo i obyczaje ówczesnej Anglii. Pełna humoru, absurdalnych sytuacji oraz błyskotliwych spostrzeżeń dotyczących ludzkiego charakteru. Dickensa styl pisania, jego zdolność do obserwacji ludzkiego życia i umiejętność tworzenia barwnych postaci sprawiają, że powieść ta cieszy się popularnością do dziś.

Klasyka światowa literatury młodzieżowej Tytułowy bohater, Olivier Twist, chłopiec urodzony w schronisku dla bezdomnych, trafia do sierocińca, w którym panują głód, zimno i przemoc. W tych nieludzkich warunkach przeżywa niewiele dzieci, Oliverowi się to jednak udaje. W dniu dziewiątych urodzin chłopiec zostaje odesłany do kolejnego sierocińca, w którym ma się `nauczyć` fachu, a w którym warunki są równie straszliwe, jak w poprzednim. Wyrzucony z sierocińca pod byle pretekstem, musi liczyć sam na siebie. W ten sposób trafia do szajki młodocianych złodziejaszków. Pewnego dnia na drodze Oliviera, dziecka bezwzględnie wykorzystywanego od początku życia, stanie jednak ktoś, kto poda mu pomocną dłoń i dzięki komu życie chłopca się zmieni. `Olivier Twist`...

Puffin Classics: the definitive collection of timeless stories, for every child Full of tragedy and comedy in equal measure and based in part on the author's own life, David Copperfield remains one of the most enduring and popular of Dickens' novels. Among the memorable cast of characters he encounters along the way are his brutal stepfather, Mr Murdstone; bubbly Nurse Peggotty; his brilliant, but unworthy schoolmate Steerforth, his eccentric aunt, Betsy Trotwood, the scheming clerk Uriah Heep, the enchanting Dora and the magnificent Mr Macawber - a character much like Dickens' own father.

This brilliantly coloured tale of the French Revolution is an historical romance set in Paris and London. Famous for the character of Sidney Carton who sacrifices himself upon the guillotine' it is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done '- the novel is also a powerful study of crowd psychology and the dark emotions aroused by the Revolution, illuminated by Dickens' lively comedy

Skuteczna nauka przez czytanie. Let’s read! Ebenezer Scrooge nienawidzi Świąt Bożego Narodzenia. Uważa, że wszyscy powinni pracować, a nie trwonić czas i pieniądze. Tym razem jednak święta są wyjątkowe. Scrooge’a odwiedza duch jego wspólnika Marleya. Ostrzega go, że jeśli nie zmieni swojego życia, będzie cierpiał po śmierci. W przemianie Scooge’a mają pomóc trzy tajemnicze postaci. Przypominają mu jego przeszłość, pokazują teraźniejszość, a także sugerują, jak zakończy się jego los. Czy Scrooge zdoła zmienić swoje życie i odwrócić bieg wydarzeń? Poznaj Duchy Świąt Bożego Narodzenia i ucz się angielskiego! Wybierz angielskie książki dla dzieci z serii Czytam po angielsku i przywołaj klimat świątecznych opowieści. Obawiasz się, że twoj...

Ponadczasowa opowieść o dojrzewaniu i przemianie. Poruszająca powieść dziewiętnastowiecznego mistrza pióra, Charlesa Dickensa, która doczekała się blisko dwudziestu filmowych adaptacji. Osierocony Pip mieszka z siostrą i jej mężem kowalem. Pewnego dnia chłopiec pomaga ukrywającemu się zbiegowi. Mijają lata, Pip pracuje jako czeladnik u swojego szwagra. Jest nieszczęśliwie zakochany w Estelli, pięknej dziewczynce, wychowywanej przez bogatą, zdziwaczałą starą pannę Havisham. Młodych ludzi dzieli jeden z najbardziej prozaicznych powodów – status majątkowy. Pewnego dnia okazuje się jednak, że życie Pipa może ulec diametralnej zmianie. Młodzieniec otrzymuje od anonimowego darczyńcy ogromną sumę pieniędzy. Jest jednak jeden warunek – Pip ma wyjechać do L...

Poczujcie ducha świąt Bożego Narodzenia dzięki dickensowskiej Opowieści wigilijnej w wydaniu ilustrowanym – wymarzonym dla młodych czytelników. W mroźny wigilijny wieczór bogaty chciwiec, Ebenezer Scrooge, pracuje do późna w swoim „kantorze” przy brukowanej londyńskiej uliczce i nie pozwala spędzić świąt z rodziną swojemu pracownikowi – biednemu jak mysz kościelna Bobowi Cratchitowi. Scrooge nie ma pojęcia, że jego dawny wspólnik – nieżyjący od siedmiu lat Jakub Marley – zamierza złożyć mu upiorną wizytę. Planuje ostrzec skąpca, że niedługo przyjdą do niego trzy duchy: Minionych, Obecnych i Przyszłych Świąt Bożego Narodzenia, aby przekonać go do zmiany postępowania, zanim będzie za późno! Dzięki spotkaniom z Duchami, Scrooge zaczyna dos...