Charles Dickens
In 1867 Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins collaborated to produce a stage play titled No Thoroughfare: A Drama: In Five Acts. The novel No Thoroughfare was also first published in 1867, in the Christmas number of Dickens's periodical All The Year Round. There are thematic parallels with other books from Dickens's mature writings, including Little Dorrit (1857) and especially Our Mutual Friend
...3) Hunted Down
Hunted Down / Charles Dickens
"In this classic anthology, Peter Haining has assembled a fascinating selection of Charles Dickens' detective stories. Added to the stories are extracts from the novels in which the men of the law make their mark. These law officers and the circumstances in which they work were based on Dickens' observations of the fledgling police detective force when he was a solicitor's clerk and reporter.
...In 1844, Dickens took a respite from writing novels and for several months traveled through France and Italy with his family. They visited the most famous sights: Genoa, Rome, Naples (with Vesuvius still smouldering), Florence and Venice. In his travelogue the author portrays a nation of great contrasts: grandiose buildings and urban desolation, and everyday life beside ancient monuments. But it is his encounters with Italy's colorful street
...5) Hard Times
Hard Times / Charles Dickens
"Hard Times (originally Hard Times—For These Times) was published in 1854, and is the shortest novel Charles Dickens ever published. It’s set in Coketown, a fictional mill-town set in the north of England. One of the major themes of the book is the miserable treatment of workers in the mills, and the resistance to their unionization by the mill owners, typified by the character Josiah
...6) Oliver Twist
Oliver Twist; or The Parish Boy’s Progress / Charles Dickens
"Set in Victorian London, this is a tale of a spirited young innocent's unwilling but inevitable recruitment into a scabrous gang of thieves. Masterminded by the loathsome Fagin, the underworld crew features some of Dickens' most memorable characters, including the vicious Bill Sikes, gentle Nancy, and the juvenile pickpocket known as the Artful Dodger."
...Mugby Junction / Charles Dickens
""Mugby Junction" is a set of short stories written in 1866 by Charles Dickens and collaborators Charles Collins, Amelia B. Edwards, Andrew Halliday, and Hesba Stretton. It was first published in a Christmas edition of the magazine All the Year Round. Dickens penned a majority of the issue, including the frame narrative in which "the Gentleman for Nowhere," who has spent his
...Sunday Under Three Heads / Charles Dickens
"'Sunday Under Three Heads' is a political tract written by Charles Dickens, under the pen name Timothy Sparks, dedicated to the "Right Reverend The Bishop of London". The Bishop of London had declaimed against the viciousness of the recreations engaged in by the poor on the Sabbath, and thus tacitly supported the Bill. 'Sunday Under Three Heads' was written as
...Somebody’s Luggage / Charles Dickens
"Stumbling upon some luggage that has been left behind in the hotel where he works, a waiter searches through it to identify its owner. He fails to discover this, but he does find, secreted away in different parts of the luggage, quite a number of stories. Impressed by their quality, he succeeds in getting them published, although the identity of their author remains a mystery until a visitor comes
...The Personal History and Experience of David Copperfield the Younger / Charles Dickens
"Like many of Dickens’ works, David Copperfield was published serially, then as a complete novel for the first time in 1850. Dickens himself thought of it as his favorite novel, writing in the preface that of all his works Copperfield was his favorite child. This isn’t surprising, considering that many of the events in the novel
...In autumn 1857, Charles Dickens embarked on a sightseeing trip to Cumberland with his friend, the rising star of literature Wilkie Collins. Writing together, they reported their adventures for Dickens' periodical Household Words, producing a showcase of both long-cherished and entirely novel sides of these well-loved men of letters.