Little Dorrit is work of satire on the shortcomings of the government and society of the period. Much of Dickens' ire is focused upon the institutions of debtors' prisons-in which people who owed money were imprisoned, unable to work, until they have repaid their debts. The representative prison in this case is the Marshalsea where Dickens' own father had been imprisoned. Dickens' other critiques concern industry and the treatment and safety of workers; the bureaucracy of the British Treasury; and the separation of people based on the lack of interaction between the classes. Little Dorrit...

Charles Dickens' The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit is a picaresque novel which Dickens thought to be his best work. While working on the novel Dickens changed the plot to send the title character to America allowing him to portray the United States satirically as a near wilderness with pockets of civilization filled with deceptive and self-promoting hucksters. The main theme of The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit is selfishness, portrayed in a satirical fashion using all the members of the Chuzzlewit family. It is also notable for two of Dickens' great villains, Seth...

The Mudfog Papers relates the proceedings of the fictional 'The Mudfog Society for the Advancement of Everything', a Pickwickian parody of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Like The Pickwick Papers, The Mudfog Papers claim affinity with Parliamentary reports, memoirs, and posthumous papers. At the conclusion of his first chapter, about the mayor of the provincial town of Mudfog, Dickens explains that "this is the first time we have published any of our gleanings from this particular source," referring to 'The Mudfog Papers'. He also suggests that "at some future period,...

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby was Charles Dickens' third novel centering around the life and adventures of a young man who must support his mother and sister after his father dies. Like many of Dickens' works Nicholas Nickleby has a contemporary setting much of much of which takes place in London. It is an ironic social satire, with Dickens taking aim at what he perceives to be social injustices.

iver Twist, The Parish Boy's Progress, is the second novel by Charles Dickens. The story is follows an orphan, Oliver Twist, who endures a miserable existence in a workhouse and then is placed with an undertaker. He escapes and travels to London where he meets the Artful Dodger, leader of a gang of juvenile pickpockets. Naively unaware of their unlawful activities, Oliver is led to the lair of their elderly criminal trainer Fagin. Oliver was born into a life of poverty in a workhouse. Orphaned almost from his first breath by his mother's death in childbirth and his father's absence, he is...

Our Mutual Friend is Charles Dickens' the last novel and one of his most sophisticated works, combining psychological insight with social analysis. It centers on money but is also about human values. In the opening chapters a body is found in the Thames and is identified as John Harmon, a young man recently returned to London to receive his inheritance. Were he alive, his father's will would require him to marry Bella Wilfer, a beautiful, mercenary girl whom he had never met. Instead, the money passes to the working-class Boffins, and the effects spread into various corners of London...

Charles Dickens' The Battle of Life: A Love Story is the fourth of his five Christmas Books coming after The Cricket on the Hearth and followed by The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. The setting is an English village that stands on the site of a historic battle. Some characters refer to the battle as a metaphor for the struggles of life.

This timeless classic by Charles Dickens has had many renditions and adaptations of Ebenezer Scrooge's transition from miserly and miserable to giving and generous, through a Christmas Eve visit from three spirits: Christmas Past, Present and Future. This is Bernadine Stetzel's adaptation. Mrs. Stetzel elegantly illustrates over a hundred pages in her detail oriented, American-primitive style of painting. The text is hand printed by Mrs. Stetzel in a lovely readable fashion which adds personal charm to her adaptation of this immortal tale.

Une famille est reunie aupres du feu un soir de Noel; un parent pauvre, un enfant, une vieille bonne d'enfant, un hote, le grand-pere, une femme de journee, un ecolier sourd, un invite, la mere et un emigrant a son retour d'Australie racontent, chacun a son tour, une histoire dont il a ete le temoin ou l'acteur. De beaux contes qui n'ont aucun lien entre eux et qui peuvent etre lus separement."

John Peerybingle, un coursier pauvre, mari devoue et affectueux, vit avec sa jeune epouse Dot, femme aimante, son bebe (un garcon) et la nurse, Tilly. Un grillon stridule dans le foyer, ce qui est considere comme un porte-bonheur, car chacun sait qu'un grillon de cheminee porte bonheur a une maison . Un jour, un vieil inconnu mysterieux rend visite a la famille, qui l'heberge pour quelques jours. Leur voisin, M. Tackleton, un avare, emploie a son service Caleb, un fabricant de jouets pauvre. Caleb a une fille aveugle, Bertha, et un fils, Edward, parti en Amerique du sud, dont on n'a plus de...