Charles Dickens

In the 1840s Charles Dickens wrote five short stories with strong social and moral messages. "The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In" is the second of these stories, whose predecessor was the famous "A Christmas Carol". "The Chimes" focuses on Trotty...

A charming novella by Charles Dickens first published in 1848. It is the fifth and last of Dickens' Christmas novellas. The story is more about the spirit of the holidays than about the holidays themselves, harking back to the first in the series, A Christmas Carol. The tale centers on a...

Oliver Twist doesn't ask for much—just a little more. When a hungry orphan speaks up, he's hurled from the workhouse into London's maze of alleys, where charm comes cheap and danger wears a friendly grin.

Wealthy and old, Martin Chuzzlewit, Sr. is surrounded by greedy relatives hoping to obtain a portion of his estate upon his death. Of his two descendants, born and bred in the same heritage of selfishness, one, Martin Jr., has the good fortune to transform, while the other, Jonas, does not and...

Assembled and edited by Julian Hawthorne and first published in 1907, the Old Time English volume of The Lock and Key Library features ten classic mysteries and ghost stories by Charles Dickens, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Thomas de Quincey, Charles Robert Maturin, Laurence Sterne, and William...

Richly complex, darkly comical, and irresistibly charming. Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist is one of the greatest novels of the 19th century, from one of literature's most esteemed craftsmen. Published serially between 1837 and 1839, it secured Dickens' reputation as a writer of exceptional skill...

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Julian Rhind-Tutt, star of Green Wing, also known for his roles in The Madness of King George and Tomb Raider. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Richard Maxwell. After eighteen years as a political prisoner in...

Penguin Classics presents Hard Times, Charles Dickens's stark exposé of capitalist exploitation during the industrial revolution, now adapted for downloadable audiobook. Read by the actor Michael Pennington. Coketown is dominated by the figure of Mr Thomas Gradgrind, school headmaster and model...

This is a full-cast recording of Charles Dickens’ classic holiday favorite A Christmas Carol, the tale of miserly old Ebenezer Scrooge. It is Christmas Eve, and the air outside is as cold as Scrooge’s heart. Come nightfall, Scrooge receives three visitors: the ghosts of Christmas Past...

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (commonly known as The Pickwick Papers) is the first novel by Charles Dickens. The book became the first real publishing phenomenon, with bootleg copies, theatrical performances, Sam Weller joke books and other merchandise. Written for publication as a...

The Seven Poor Travellers takes place on Christmas Eve in Rochester at the charity hospice founded in 1579 by Richard Watts - an actual hospice that Dickens knew well from his childhood days. According to Watts' will, his hospice was to supply six poor travelers (providing they were not rogues...

Eleven-year-old actor Eden Giuliano presents a brand new line of exciting children’s stories from Icon! A Christmas Carol is a novella by the great Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. A Christmas Carol recounts the story of...

A holiday classic by Charles Dickens. Originally published in 1843, Dickens worried about the disparity between the wealthy and the impoverished, and it was his attempt to bring this disparity into the light of day, to appeal to the die-hard capitalists to take care of the downtrodden masses...

Born and brought up in the appalling deprivation of the workhouse, the orphaned Oliver escapes and heads for London, only to fall into the hands of the notorious Fagin and his gang of child thieves. But Oliver is an innocent at heart, and the attempts by Fagin and the impudently witty Artful...

The classic Charles Dickens novel, performed by one of Britain's greatest comedians Widely considered to be Charles Dickens' greatest and best-loved work, Great Expectations was first published as a serial between December 1860 - August 1861 and has been in print ever since. The story of a young...

Here's Dicken's Christmas classic of Ebenezer Scrooge and his encounter with the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Originally published in 1843,A Christmas Carol has continued to be one of the most popular and enduring Christmas stories of all time. Click here to see all the titles...

Orphaned at birth to labor in a workhouse, Oliver Twist is barely ten when he flees for London. There he befriends young Jack Dawkins, who educates the innocent Oliver in the ways of survival. When Jack draws Oliver into a gang of juvenile pickpockets, tutored by the unscrupulous Fagin...

In Coketown, England, wealthy retiree Thomas Gradgrind has founded a school based on his belief that life should be factual - not fanciful. Among his pupils are his children, Thomas and Louisa, who are raised on his teachings of rational self-interest and grow into loveless, despairing adults...

In the polluted and poverty-ridden Coketown, Louisa and Tom Gradgrind endure a cold and loveless childhood at the hands of their self-satisfied and unimaginative father Thomas. Starved of affection, Louisa is forced into a miserable marriage with the self-made industrialist Josiah Bounderby...

Sydney Carton, a lawyer and wastrel, tries to redeem himself somewhere between Paris and London to make up for his mis-spent youth. A tale of two cities is considered by many to be Dickens' most thrilling novel. Whilst contrasting the tranquility of London with revolution-torn Paris, incident...