Charles Dickens
1) Oliver Twist
Author
Lexile measure
940L
Language
English
Description
"When a young orphan runs away to London, he falls in with a group of pickpockets and thieves. Oliver Twist (1838), is one of Charles Dickens' most highly regarded works, and is a pioneering work of social realism. An unvarnished portrayal of crime and poverty in Victorian England, this is an essential classic of literature" -- Page [4] cover.
Author
Lexile measure
1020L
Language
English
Description
Join Ebenezer Scrooge--a cold-hearted, lonely old man--one Christmas eve as he is visited by the Ghost of Jacob Marley, his sole friend and former business partner. The troubled phantom has come to tell Scrooge that in order for him to avoid Marley's horrible fate, Scrooge must heed the warnings of Three Spirits who will haunt him that very night.
Author
Lexile measure
1130L
Language
English
Description
After eighteen years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the aging Doctor Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There the lives of two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil roads of London, they are drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained...
5) Bleak House
Author
Series
Lexile measure
1180L
Language
English
Formats
Description
Bleak House, Dickens's most daring experiment in the narration of a complex plot, challenges the reader to make connections - between the fashionable and the outcast, the beautiful and the ugly, the powerful and the victims. Nowhere in Dickens's later novels is his attack on an uncaring society more imaginatively embodied, but nowhere either is the mixture of comedy and angry satire more deftly managed. Bleak House defies a single description. It...
Author
Series
Lexile measure
1070L
Language
English
Formats
Description
The final and unfinished novel of Charles Dickens, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" begins a tale that revolves around John Jasper, choirmaster and opium addict, who is the guardian of his orphaned nephew Edwin Drood. Before the death of his parents, Edwin was promised to marry Rosa Bud, but their affections have cooled upon reaching adulthood. This angers Neville Landless, twin brother of Helena and from Ceylon, who quickly develops feelings for Rosa....
Author
Lexile measure
1070L
Language
English
Description
Written in the form of an autobiography, it tells the story of David Copperfield, growing to maturity in the affairs of the world and affairs of the heart--his success as an artist arising out of his sufferings and out of the lessons he derived from life.
A classic tale of an orphan growing up in the 1800's of England. Intimately rooted in the author's own biography and written as a first-person narrative, "David Copperfield" charts a young man's...
Author
Series
Everyman's library volume 200
Lexile measure
1070L
Language
English
Formats
Description
At The Center of Martin Chuzzlewit -- the novel Angus Wilson called "one of the most sheerly exciting of all Dickens stories"--Is Martin himself, very old, very rich, very much on his guard. What he suspects (with good reason) is that every one of Iris close and distant relations. now converging in droves on the country inn where they believe he is dying, will stop at nothing to become the inheritor of Iris great fortune. Having unjustly disinherited...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
John Harmon returns to England as his father's heir. Believed drowned under suspicious circumstances--a situation convenient to his wish for anonymity--John evaluates Bella Wilfer whom he must marry to secure his inheritance. The story is filled with colorful Victorian 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...
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Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Illustrated with beautiful chapter headings that match the book cover!
From the mysterious Druids and noble King Alfred to the notorious Henry VIII and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Charles Dickens traced his country's history for the benefit of young Victorians. Written with the beloved storyteller's customary panache, this series of historical vignettes reads like a fast-paced novel, rich in anecdotes and colorful stories. Dickens' unsparing,...
13) Little Dorrit
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Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
The novel "Little Dorrit", published originally between 1855 and 1857, is a work of satire on the shortcomings of the government and society of the period. Much of Dickens' ire is focused upon the institutions of debtor's 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 the author's own father had been imprisoned. Most of Dickens'...
14) Dombey and Son
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Charles Dickens was an English short story writer, dramatist, essayist, and the most popular novelist to come out of the Victorian era. Many of his novels, with their frequent concern for social reform, were first published in magazines in serial form under the pseudonym, Boz. Unlike authors who completed entire novels before serialization, Dickens often created the episodes as they were being serialized. The continuing popularity of his novels and...
15) Barnaby Rudge
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
Fully entitled "Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty," this novel was Dickens' first attempt at a historical novel. As such, it is the precursor to his more famous "A Tale of Two Cities", in which his exploration of mob violence, and especially the effect of public events on individual lives, becomes apparent. This work centers on Barnaby Rudge, a mentally simple son, and his loving mother, who are a part of the small village of Epping Forest,...
Author
Series
Lexile measure
1250L
Language
English
Description
Tor Classics are affordably-priced editions designed to attract the young reader. Original dynamic cover art enthusiastically represents the excitement of each story. Appropriate "reader friendly" type sizes have been chosen for each title-offering clear, accurate, and readable text. All editions are complete and unabridged, and feature Introductions and Afterwords.
This edition of Nicholas Nickleby includes a Foreword and Biographical Note.
When...
17) Hard Times
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Set in an industrial city in Northern England during the Victorian era, Thomas Gradgrind, a wealthy and retired man, devotes his life to the rationalist philosophy, and raises his children, Louisa and Tom, to never engage in any imaginative activity. The two grow up feeling confused, like something is missing in their lives, yet are unable figure out what exactly that is and affected differently by their upbringing. Louisa struggles to feel joy, and...
Author
Series
Language
English
Formats
Description
Charles Dickens' work The Battle of Life: A Love Story has an English village on the site of a historic battle as the setting. Some characters allude to the war as a metaphor for the struggle for life, hence the title. Charles John Huffam Dickens FRSA is an English writer and social commentator. He produced some of the world's most renowned fictional characters and is often regarded as the best author of the Victorian era. His writings achieved unparalleled...
Author
Language
English
Description
Ingeniously conceived and brilliantly rendered, and set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush, The Wreck of the Golden Mary is a masterpiece of Victorian storytelling. En route to making their fortunes, the passengers of the Golden Mary suffer a terrifying ordeal when their vessel collides with an iceberg. Now the helpless victims of a shipwreck, they turn to the restorative powers of storytelling in a desperate attempt to raise morale....
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A bone-chilling trio of supernatural tales by fiction master Charles Dickens In "The Haunted House," a new homeowner discovers he is sharing his bed with the skeleton of the house's former master. In "The Trial for Murder," a revengeful ghost haunts a juror serving at his killer's trial. In "The Signal-Man," an apparition warns a man of impending disaster. These strange and frightening occurrences unfold in grim and gripping detail in this collection...