Showing results by author "Charles Dickens"" in All Categories

Originally published in the 1850 Christmas edition of Dickens' journal Household Words, "A Christmas Tree" is considered to be one of Dickens' more autobiographical pieces. In it, decorations on the Christmas tree trigger the narrator's memories of Christmases past. This version of "A Christmas Tree" was recorded as part of Dreamscape's The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens.

Primi decenni dell'800. David Copperfield nasce già orfano di padre e molto presto è costretto ad affrontare prove molto dure. L'ascoltatore trema riconoscendo le vere intenzioni di molti dei personaggi che egli incontra nelle sue traversie e la natura dei pericoli che incombono sui di lui. Ma David esce bene, alla fine, da ogni avventura e già da giovane adulto è lui, in genere, a capire come stanno le cose e ad aiutare gli amici di fronte alle insidie della vita (temibile è in particolare il finto umile Uriah Heep), tanto più quanto più ha successo.

The Old Curiosity Shop is one of two novels (the other being Barnaby Rudge) which Charles Dickens published along with short stories in his weekly serial Master Humphrey's Clock, from 1840 to 1841. It was so popular that New York readers stormed the wharf when the ship bearing the final installment arrived in 1841. The plot follows the life of Nell Trent and her grandfather, both residents of The Old Curiosity Shop in London.

Dickens wrote "A Christmas Carol" during a period when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols and newer customs such as Christmas trees. He was influenced by the experiences of his own youth and by the Christmas stories of other authors including Washington Irving and Douglas Jerrold. Dickens had written three Christmas stories prior to the novella, and was inspired following a visit to the Field Lane Ragged School, one of several establishments for London's street children.

This unique presentation combines classic children's favorites with an anthology of stories, poems, and songs of the holiday season.

One of Dickens' most famous novels, this classic is set amid the turbulent times of the French Revolution. The main theme is the rescue of young Charles Darney, a French aristocrat sentenced to the guillotine by the "citizens" of the revolution. Out of the gloomy pall of the guillotine dungeons comes one of literature’s greatest heroes, Sidney Carton, the rescuer of Darney.

This is Charles Dickens’s second novel and regarded as one of his best. It was originally published as a serial from 1837 to 1839, and titled; Oliver Twist, or; A Parish Boys Progress. As a book, it first appeared in 1838 in three volumes. The story follows the title character Oliver Twist, who, being born and raised in a workhouse for the first ten years of his life, runs away to nearby London. Here, he falls in with a gang of young thieves and pickpockets controlled by Fagin, an elderly criminal.

Through the story of Thomas Gradgrind, a strict, no-nonsense man who values "facts" above all else, Dickens explores the consequences of an education system that prioritizes logic and reason over imagination, emotion, and humanity. Gradgrind's rigid philosophy deeply affects his children and the lives of many others, including the innocent and idealistic Sissy Jupe, whose life is shaped by her connection to the circus and its emotional, colorful world.

"A ghostly little book", said Charles Dickens of his famous Christmas novella, which first appeared in 1843. It has become the most famous classic Christmas story of all, with the miserly figure of Scrooge, the epitome of the callous employer; sadly crippled Tiny Tim; and the three spectres: the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future. This audiobook continues the award-winning series of Dickens' works read by leading English classical actor Anton Lesser.

Based on a trip taken just short of his thirtieth birthday, American Notes for General Circulation is a dazzling travelogue of Charles Dickens’s adventures in North America in 1842. Travelling from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Richmond, St. Louis, Quebec and more, Dickens writes candidly about his time in America.

Great Horror Stories is a vintage collection of some of the finest ghost tales, horror stories, and supernatural legends ever written, by the best writers the genre has to offer.

"Great Expectations" is a novel fully narrated in the first person about the personal growth and development of an orphan, nicknamed Pip. The novel is set in Kent and London in the early to mid-19th century and contains some of Dickens' most memorable scenes, including the opening in a graveyard, where the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch, accosts young Pip. "Great Expectations" is full of extreme imagery - poverty; prison ships and chains, and fights till death - and has a colorful cast of characters who have entered popular culture.

A Tale of Two Cities is a historical novel set in the time of the French Revolution. It is a stirring narrative of the cruel injustices and misery suffered by the ordinary people of France in the years preceding the Revolution, and their ultimate violent reaction to this oppression. While the fate of Charles Darney and Lucie Manette is the main concern of the plot, it is the characters of Dr Manette and Madame Defarge that rouse deep emotions in the reader, as does the tragic figure of Sydney Carton. The endearing Mr Lorry and loyal Miss Pross add the humorous touch. In A Tale of Two Cities...

Basil Rathbone stars in this staged version of Dicken's A Christmas Carol.

Here is Charles Dickens' semi-autobiographical tale of a boy who is sent away by his stepfather after his mother dies but manages to overcome many incredible adversities.

A Christmas Carol is Charles Dickens's classic tale of the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge. In this all-new full-cast dramatization, we re-live the iconic story where the mean old businessman is visited by the spirits of Christmases past, present and future. With a cast of eleven actors performing the well-known roles of everyone from Jacob Marley to Tiny Tim, this fresh production breathes new life into a much-loved seasonal favourite.

Great Expectations is one of Charles Dickens’ greatest critical and popular successes. The first-person narrative relates the coming-of-age of Pip (Philip Pirrip). Reared in the marshes of Kent by his disagreeable sister and her sweet-natured husband, the blacksmith Joe Gargery, the young Pip one day helps a convict to escape. Later he is sent to live with Miss Havisham, a woman driven half-mad years earlier by her lover's departure on their wedding day. Her other ward is the orphaned Estella, whom she is teaching to torment men with her beauty.

The Battle of Life: A Love Story is an 1846 novel by Charles Dickens. It 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 an historic battle. Some characters refer to the battle as a metaphor for the struggles of life, hence the title. Battle is the only one of the five Christmas Books that has no supernatural or explicitly religious elements. (One scene takes place at Christmas time, but it is not the final scene.)

Hard Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirizes the social and economic conditions of the era. Hard Times is unusual in several ways. It is by far the shortest of Dickens's novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead, the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town.

Dans un orphelinat de l'Angleterre victorienne, Oliver Twist survit au milieu de ses compagnons d'infortune. Mal nourri, exploité, il est placé dans une entreprise de pompes funèbres où, là encore, il ne connaît que privations et mauvais traitements. Oliver endure tout, jusqu'au jour où une provocation de trop le pousse à s'enfuir vers Londres. Épuisé, affamé, il est recueilli par une bande de jeunes voleurs qui travaillent pour le vieux Fagin.