Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Charles John Huffam Dickens ( 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870)

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known. (A Tale of Two Cities)

Bah Humbug. (A Christmas Carol)

Please Sir, I want some more. (Oliver Twist)

He wrote about life in the modern city, with its lawyers and criminals, bankers and urchins, dreamers and clerks.

He created characters still known to millions Ebeneezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim, Pip and Miss Havisham, Fagin and Oliver Twist. And it made him a star, mobbed by fans on both sides of the Atlantic.

Britain has marked the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens, the first global celebrity author and chronicler of a world of urban inequality that looks a lot like the one we live in today.

"You only have to look around our society and everything he wrote about in the 1840s is still relevant," said Dickens' biographer, Claire Tomalin.

"The great gulf between the rich and poor, corrupt financiers, corrupt Members of Parliament ... You name it, he said it."

Dickens' mistrust of the wealthy and compassion for the poor haven't stopped him being embraced by Britain's high and mighty.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Publications and theatrical interpretations



  • Novels of Charles Dickens:
    The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (Monthly serial, April 1836 to November 1837)
    The Adventures of Oliver Twist (Monthly serial in Bentley's Miscellany, February 1837 to April 1839)
    The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (Monthly serial, April 1838 to October 1839)
    The Old Curiosity Shop (Weekly serial in Master Humphrey's Clock, 25 April 1840, to 6 February 1841)
    Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty (Weekly serial in Master Humphrey's Clock, 13 February 1841, to 27 November 1841)
    The Christmas books:
    A Christmas Carol (1843)
    The Chimes (1844)
    The Cricket on the Hearth (1845)
    The Battle of Life (1846)
    The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain (1848)
    The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (Monthly serial, January 1843 to July 1844)
    Dombey and Son (Monthly serial, October 1846 to April 1848)
    David Copperfield (Monthly serial, May 1849 to November 1850)
    Bleak House (Monthly serial, March 1852 to September 1853)
    Hard Times: For These Times (Weekly serial in Household Words, 1 April 1854, to 12 August 1854)
    Little Dorrit (Monthly serial, December 1855 to June 1857)
    A Tale of Two Cities (Weekly serial in All the Year Round, 30 April 1859, to 26 November 1859)
    Great Expectations (Weekly serial in All the Year Round, 1 December 1860 to 3 August 1861)
    Our Mutual Friend (Monthly serial, May 1864 to November 1865)
    The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Monthly serial, April 1870 to September 1870. Only six of twelve planned numbers completed)
    Short story collections
    Sketches by Boz (1836)
    The Mudfog Papers (1837) in Bentley's Miscellany magazine
    Reprinted Pieces (1861)
    The Uncommercial Traveller (1860–1869)
    Christmas numbers of Household Words magazine:
    What Christmas Is, as We Grow Older (1851)
    A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire (1852)
    Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire (1853)
    The Seven Poor Travellers (1854)
    The Holly-Tree Inn (1855)
    The Wreck of the "Golden Mary" (1856)
    The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857)
    A House to Let (1858)
    Christmas numbers of All the Year Round magazine:
    The Haunted House (1859)
    A Message From the Sea (1860)
    Tom Tiddler's Ground (1861)
    Somebody's Luggage (1862)
    Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings (1863)
    Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy (1864)
    Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions (1865)
    Mugby Junction (1866)
    No Thoroughfare (1867)
    Selected non-fiction, poetry, and plays
    The Village Coquettes (Plays, 1836)
    The Fine Old English Gentleman (poetry, 1841)
    Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi (1838)
    American Notes: For General Circulation (1842)
    Pictures from Italy (1846)
    The Life of Our Lord: As written for his children (1849)
    A Child's History of England (1853)
    The Frozen Deep (play, 1857)
    Speeches, Letters and Sayings (1870) Speeches, Letters and Sayings of Charles Dickens
    Wikipedia Bio |  Search Amazon.com for Novels of Charles Dickens:
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