Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist published in 1838 and set in London's Victorian underworld, is a novel of social protest, a morality tale, and a detective story. A Tale of Two Cities, published in 1859, is Dicken'sss great novel of the French Revolution. Great Expectations, published in 1861, is the story of Pip and the mysterious fortune which falls into his lap. A Christmas Carol is his most beloved story, as much as part of Christmas as mistletoe and carolers.

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";...