"Facts alone are wanted in life." The children at Mr Gradgrind's school are sternly ordered to stifle their imaginations and pay attention only to cold, hard reality. They live in a smoky, troubled industrial town where entertainment is hard to come by and resentments run deep. The effects of Gradgrind's teaching on his own children, Tom and Louisa, are particularly profound and leave them ill-equipped to deal with the unpredictable desires of the human heart. Luckily for them they have a friend in Sissy Jupe, the child of a circus clown, who retains her warm-hearted, compassionate...

Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. Ebenezer Scrooge is unimpressed by Christmas. He has no time for festivities or goodwill toward his fellow men and is only interested in money. Then, on the night of Christmas Eve, his life is changed by a series of ghostly visitations that show him some bitter truths about his choices. Dickens' most influential book is a funny, clever, and hugely enjoyable story.

Pip's sister makes it clear that her orphaned brother is nothing but a burden on her. But suddenly things begin to change for Pip. An anonymous person gives him money. Are these events as random as they seem? Or does Pip's fate hang on a series of coincidences he could never have expected?

For David Copperfield, orphaned and with a cruel stepfather, the future looks bleak. But a new start beckons with the magnificent Mr Micawber, then with his eccentric aunt, Betsey Trotwood.

'Hard Times' is Dickens's portrait of a Lancashire mill town in the 1840s. Through the characters of Gradgrind & Bounderby he examines the ethos of 19th century industrialization which allows human beings to be enslaved to machines.

Long convinced that his family are only after his money, Martin Chuzzlewit takes in an orphaned girl - Mary Graham - to be his nursemaid. But when Martin's grandson - young Martin - falls in love with Mary, he is disowned. Cast out, young Martin travels to the American west to build his fortune. However, his journey has unforeseen consequences.

Dickens's classic morality tale of a starving orphan caught between opposing forces of good and evil is a powerful indictment of Victorian England's Poor Laws. Oliver begins life in the workhouse, graduates to the criminal underworld of London and learns to survive.

A compelling mixture of humour and brooding menace, this is the story of 'Little Nell' and her persecution by the grotesque and lecherous Quilp.

After 18 years of imprisonment in the Bastille, the devoted Doctor Manette is reunited with his daughter, the gentle Lucie, in England. There she captures the hearts of two very different men--Charles Darney, a banished French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a well-known English lawyer, both of whom must compete for her love. With a twisting plot of revenge, corruption, and love played out under the shadow of the guillotine, this is one of Dickens' most exciting stories.

As fierce mobs riot in the streets of London, the decent and sincere Geoffrey Haredale forges a strange alliance with the dishonest John Chester. Their aim is to prevent the marriage of Haredale's niece Emma to Chester's honorable son Edward, selfishly using the violence around them to their advantage. Meanwhile, unintentionally drawn into the mayhem is the half-witted Barnaby Rudge, whose past is interwoven with a mysterious unsolved murder. In this tale of blackmail, betrayal, and bloodshed, Barnaby must fight to clear his name and escape his hopeless fate.