In "The Battle of Life: A Love Story", two sisters live with their father near the site of a historic battle. The betrothed of the younger sister left disconsolate when she disappears with a suitor, marries the older sister. Six years later, the younger sister reappears with a shocking explanation. This is the fourth of the famous Christmas books of Charles Dickens that begins with "A Christmas Carol."

The sensational bestselling story of Little Nell, the beautiful child thrown into a shadowy, terrifying world, seems to belong less to the history of the Victorian novel than to folklore, fairy tale, or myth. The sorrows of Nell and her grandfather are offset by Dickens's creation of a dazzling contemporary world inhabited by some of his most brilliantly drawn characters-the eloquent ne'er-do-well Dick Swiveller; the hungry maid known as the "Marchioness";...

Originally published in the 1853 Christmas edition of Dickens' journal Household Words, The Schoolboy's Story recounts the tale of Old Cheeseman, a schoolboy who becomes the second Latin Master, and his former peers who consider him a traitor for doing it. This version of The Schoolboy's Story is part of Dreamscape's The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens.

Originally published in the 1852 Christmas edition of Dickens' journal Household Words, The Poor Relation's Story takes place during a Christmas feast, where a poor relation of the host tells the story of his life. This version of The Poor Relation's Story is part of Dreamscape's The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens.

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

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...

Young man's inheritance of his father's estate depends upon the conditions of his marriage. Dickens's last complete and full length novel, first published in 1865. For other editions, see Author Catalog.

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 progress through a difficult childhood in Victorian England to ultimate success as a novelist, finding true love along the way. Jeremy Tambling's provocative Introduction reveals subtle themes relevant today in Dickens' favorite work.

Deals with the adventures of a young orphan boy trying to survive amid greed and poverty in 19th-century London.

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'...