Charles Dickens
Spine number 01
Sketches by Boz
London streets, omnibus passengers, parish officials and precarious households fill this mixture of observation, character sketches and invented tales. Dickens’s reporter’s eye catches social pretension and hardship in the same crowded city. Pieces began appearing in newspapers and magazines in 1833; John Macrone issued two series in 1836, with illustrations by George Cruikshank.
1836 · collection · Fiction & non-fiction
Spine number 02
The Pickwick Papers
Samuel Pickwick and three companions leave their London club to travel, observe and make themselves useful, with more goodwill than worldly experience. Coaches, inns and talkative strangers give Dickens room for an expansive comedy of misunderstandings and unexpected friendships. The novel appeared in monthly parts in 1836–1837, with the final issue combining two numbers.
1836–1837 · book · Fiction
Spine number 03
Sunday Under Three Heads
Dickens considers Sunday as it is lived, as strict Sabbath legislation would make it, and as he thinks it should be. Published under the name Timothy Sparks, the pamphlet defends working people's access to recreation.
1836 · pamphlet · Non-fiction
Spine number 04
Oliver Twist
A workhouse child encounters adults whose claims to kindness sit uneasily beside their treatment of him. Oliver’s search for shelter leads into a London of streetwise boys and criminal households, where a friendly welcome may be difficult to judge. The novel ran in Bentley’s Miscellany from February 1837 to April 1839; the three-volume book appeared in 1838, before the serial ended.
1837–1839 · book · Fiction
Spine number 05
Sketches of Young Gentlemen
A bashful dinner guest, a swaggering theatre-goer and other social performers supply a mock guide for young ladies. Dickens finds comedy in the distance between the impression each young man hopes to make and the inconvenience he causes. Published anonymously in 1838 with illustrations by Phiz, the book answered Edward Caswall’s Sketches of Young Ladies, issued as the work of Quiz in 1837.
1838 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 06
Nicholas Nickleby
After his father's death, Nicholas Nickleby must support his mother and sister, and is sent by his uncle to teach at a Yorkshire school. The novel follows him from that brutal household into the theatre, London lodging-houses and the uncle's schemes against the family. It was issued in twenty monthly parts from April 1838 to October 1839.
1838–1839 · book · Fiction
Spine number 07
Sketches of Young Couples
Married life supplies a gallery of couples whose habits, quarrels and public performances give them away. Dickens examines the ways two people can make a shared identity out of affection, pretension or disagreement.
1840 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 08
Master Humphrey's Clock
Master Humphrey gathers friends around an old clock to share stories and manuscripts. The original weekly publication also carried The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge; the planned Entold volume retains the framing material and shorter pieces, with those novels supplied separately.
1840–1841 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 09
The Old Curiosity Shop
Nell Trent lives with her grandfather in a London shop crowded with strange old objects. His secrecy and the unwelcome attention of the moneylender Daniel Quilp make their home increasingly uneasy. The novel combines a child’s vulnerability with Dickens’s taste for theatrical eccentrics; it ran weekly in Master Humphrey’s Clock from April 1840 to February 1841.
1840–1841 · book · Fiction
Spine number 10
Barnaby Rudge
An old murder shadows families around a coaching inn near London, while religious hostility gathers force in the wider city. Barnaby, a young man with an intellectual disability, lives with his mother and keeps a talkative raven, Grip. Dickens’s first historical novel brings domestic mysteries into the world of the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780; it ran weekly in Master Humphrey’s Clock in 1841.
1841 · book · Fiction
Spine number 11
American Notes
Dickens records his first journey through North America, visiting cities, public institutions and places beyond the usual tourist route. His observations of prisons, slavery, manners and public life bring the travel book into arguments about the society he encounters.
1842 · book · Non-fiction
Spine number 12
Martin Chuzzlewit
Old Martin Chuzzlewit is rich and suspicious; his grandson, also Martin, falls out with him and must make his own way. The novel watches a family of legacy-hunters in England, then follows the younger Martin to America, where the republic he imagined looks less hospitable. It appeared in monthly parts from January 1843 to July 1844.
1843–1844 · book · Fiction
Spine number 13
A Christmas Carol
Ebenezer Scrooge, a London moneylender who keeps Christmas as a waste of time, is visited on Christmas Eve by a succession of spirits. The story puts his past, the lives around him, and a possible future in front of him in a single night. Dickens wrote it in a few weeks while Martin Chuzzlewit was still appearing; Chapman and Hall published it on 19 December 1843.
1843 · novella · Fiction
Spine number 14
The Chimes
Toby Veck, a poor ticket-porter, waits for work beneath a London church tower as the year turns. The bells seem to speak, and what they show him of his daughter's prospects and the lectures of the well-fed tests his faith in the poor. Dickens wrote it in Italy; it was published on 16 December 1844 as the second of his Christmas books.
1844 · novella · Fiction
Spine number 15
The Cricket on the Hearth
Carrier John Peerybingle and his young wife Dot share a home whose familiar cricket seems almost another member of the household. Visitors, neighbours and a toy merchant bring outside pressures into this domestic fairy tale about trust and appearances. Published in December 1845, it was the third of Dickens’s five Christmas books.
1845 · novella · Fiction
Spine number 16
Pictures from Italy
Streets, churches, theatres and crowds shape Dickens's account of travelling in Italy. The book follows the impressions of a visitor drawn to everyday life as well as the country's celebrated buildings and pictures.
1846 · book · Non-fiction
Spine number 17
Dombey and Son
Paul Dombey, proud of his City house, waits for a son to inherit the firm and treats his daughter as little account. The novel follows the nursery, the school, the office and the marriages that form around that pride, as the firm's idea of succession meets people it cannot price. It ran in twenty monthly parts from October 1846 to April 1848.
1846–1848 · book · Fiction
Spine number 18
The Battle of Life
Grace and Marion Jeddler live with their father on the site of an old battlefield, while he insists that human life is an absurd business. Affection and competing ideas of duty give this short domestic romance its tensions. Published in December 1846 as the fourth Christmas book, it uses a village love story without the supernatural visitors of several companion volumes.
1846 · novella · Fiction
Spine number 19
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain
Redlaw, a chemist who cannot forget old injuries, is offered a gift: that memory of wrong will leave him, and that he will pass the same forgetting to others. The story watches what happens to his students, a poor family and the people who have cared for him when recollection is taken away. Bradbury and Evans published The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain on 19 December 1848, the last of the Christmas books.
1848 · novella · Fiction
Spine number 20
David Copperfield
David looks back over a childhood in Suffolk and his efforts to find a place in the world. Affectionate, absurd and intimidating adults fill his recollections, with the older narrator able to see what the child could not understand. The novel draws on parts of Dickens’s early experience, including child labour and family debt, and appeared in monthly parts from May 1849 to November 1850.
1849–1850 · book · Fiction
Spine number 21
A Child's Dream of a Star
A brother and sister watch a bright star and imagine a connection between its light and their own lives. This brief tale uses a child's vision of the heavens to approach bereavement and remembrance.
1850 · short story · Fiction
Spine number 22
A Child's History of England
Dickens retells English history for young readers, from ancient Britain through the reign of James II. Kings, conflicts and changes of government are presented by a narrator ready to judge the powerful rather than accept their own accounts.
1851–1853 · book · Non-fiction
Spine number 23
Bleak House
A Chancery suit, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, has lasted so long that the people who live by it can barely remember its origin. Esther Summerson's narrative and a third-person London story share the book, among lawyers, a deadlocked court, a lady with a secret and a fog that sits on the law. It appeared in monthly parts from March 1852 to September 1853.
1852–1853 · book · Fiction
Spine number 24
A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire
A Christmas gathering provides the occasion for a series of tales told in different voices. Dickens edited this collaborative Household Words number and contributed The Poor Relation's Story and The Child's Story.
1852 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 25
Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire
The fireside storytelling gathering returns with another set of narrators and experiences. Dickens contributed The Schoolboy's Story and Nobody's Story to this collaborative Christmas number of Household Words.
1853 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 26
Hard Times
In the industrial town of Coketown, Thomas Gradgrind insists that children need facts and calculations, with no room for fancy. His family and the circus girl Sissy Jupe give Dickens sharply different ways of seeing education, work and human worth. Published weekly in Household Words from April to August 1854, this is his shortest completed novel.
1854 · book · Fiction
Spine number 27
The Seven Poor Travellers
A visitor to a Rochester charity lodging-house arranges a Christmas meal for its six travellers. The resulting gathering frames a shared collection of stories, with Dickens providing the opening encounter and the tale of Richard Doubledick.
1854 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 28
Little Dorrit
Amy Dorrit supports her family from outside the Marshalsea, the debtors’ prison where she was born and her father still lives. Returning to London after years abroad, Arthur Clennam finds her working in his mother’s household and begins to question the obligations surrounding them. Family dependence, financial prestige and obstructive institutions connect the novel’s many lives; it appeared in monthly parts from December 1855 to June 1857.
1855–1857 · book · Fiction
Spine number 29
The Holly-Tree Inn
A traveller detained by snow at an inn finds time for recollection and storytelling. Dickens's framing contributions join tales by other writers in the Christmas number of Household Words.
1855 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 30
The Wreck of the Golden Mary
A voyage towards California becomes an ordeal when the passengers and crew must face the loss of their ship. Dickens and his fellow contributors combine the account of a wreck with stories told during the struggle to survive.
1856 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 31
The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
Francis Goodchild and Thomas Idle travel through northern England with different ideas about how much exertion a holiday should require. Dickens and Wilkie Collins turn their journey into a mixture of comic travel writing and stories.
1857 · serialisation · Fiction & non-fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 32
The Perils of Certain English Prisoners
An English settlement in Central America faces a violent attack and the capture of its inhabitants. Dickens and Wilkie Collins share a tale of danger, imprisonment and attempted escape, first published for Christmas in Household Words.
1857 · novella · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 33
Reprinted Pieces
Workhouses, seaside towns, detectives and everyday public nuisances furnish a collection of essays, sketches and tales. First gathered under this title in the Library Edition, the pieces draw largely on Dickens's contributions to Household Words; contents vary in later editions.
1858 · collection · Fiction & non-fiction
Spine number 33A
To Be Read at Dusk
A conversation among couriers outside an Alpine inn turns to experiences that resist ordinary explanation. First published in The Keepsake, the story is also included in expanded editions of Reprinted Pieces, the collection chosen for its Entold shelf parent.
1852 · short story · Fiction
Spine number 34
A House to Let
An elderly woman becomes curious about a seemingly empty house across the way. Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Anne Procter contribute to the investigation and the stories surrounding its occupants.
1858 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 35
A Tale of Two Cities
London and Paris, in the years of the French Revolution, are bound together by the released prisoner Dr Manette, his daughter Lucie, the French emigrant Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton, a dissipated lawyer who resembles Darnay. The novel follows how private loyalty is tested when revolution reaches people who thought they had escaped it. It ran weekly in All the Year Round from April to November 1859.
1859 · book · Fiction
Spine number 36
Hunted Down
An insurance manager recalls a man whose appearance and behaviour immediately aroused his suspicion. Business dealings become the starting point for a compact story of detection and concealed intentions.
1859 · short story · Fiction
Spine number 37
The Haunted House
A man takes a house with a reputation for ghosts and invites friends to occupy its rooms. Their accounts form a collaborative Christmas collection in which apparent hauntings make room for memories and personal histories.
1859 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 38
The Uncommercial Traveller
An observer travelling on no commercial business visits streets, institutions, ports and places remembered from childhood. Dickens's recurring persona connects essays and sketches first printed in All the Year Round and later gathered into expanding collections.
1860–1869 · collection · Non-fiction
Spine number 39
Great Expectations
Pip remembers a childhood at the forge with his sister and her kindly husband Joe, and an alarming encounter on the Kent marshes. His growing awareness of rank and gentility unsettles the life he knows. The older Pip’s account combines affection, embarrassment and suspense, inviting readers to hear more than his younger self understands; the novel ran weekly in All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861.
1860–1861 · book · Fiction
Spine number 40
A Message from the Sea
A message recovered from the sea draws a captain into the affairs of a coastal community. Dickens and fellow contributors build a Christmas narrative around the discovery and the histories it brings into question.
1860 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 41
Tom Tiddler's Ground
A visit to a recluse supplies the frame for stories that test the attractions of withdrawing from other people. Dickens's contributions introduce and connect a collaborative Christmas number of All the Year Round.
1861 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 42
Somebody's Luggage
A waiter acquires abandoned luggage and discovers manuscripts among its contents. The papers provide the stories in this collaborative Christmas number, while Dickens supplies the waiter's account and parts of the recovered writing.
1862 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 43
Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings
A London landlady tells the story of her lodging-house and the people who have become part of its life. Dickens's Mrs. Lirriper frames contributions by other writers in a Christmas number concerned with lodgers, family and care.
1863 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 44
Our Mutual Friend
A fortune in dust heaps is left to a young man who is supposed to have drowned on his way to marry, and the money passes to the Boffins, who once served his father. The novel follows river scavengers, a lawyer's clerk, a doll's dressmaker and people who live by what London throws away. It appeared in monthly parts from May 1864 to November 1865.
1864–1865 · book · Fiction
Spine number 45
Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy
News of a legacy takes Mrs. Lirriper and her companions beyond their familiar London setting. Dickens returns to the landlady's voice in a collaborative sequel that surrounds her story with other contributors' tales.
1864 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 46
Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions
Doctor Marigold is a travelling seller whose name conceals no medical qualification. His account frames a collaborative Christmas collection presented as prescriptions, with stories offered under directions for how they should be taken.
1865 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 46A
The Trial for Murder
A juror finds that a murder trial is attended by a presence invisible to most of those in court. The story first appeared as To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt in Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions.
1865 · short story · Fiction
Spine number 47
Mugby Junction
A traveller arrives at a railway junction uncertain which direction his life should take. Dickens's linked contributions introduce the junction and its people, while other writers extend the Christmas collection along its branching lines.
1866 · collection · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 47A
The Signal-Man
A visitor meets a railway signalman who is troubled by an apparition beside a tunnel. The man's account connects the everyday precision of railway work with warnings he cannot explain; the story first appeared in Mugby Junction.
1866 · short story · Fiction
Spine number 48
No Thoroughfare
The records of a foundling institution connect two lives through a shared name. Dickens and Wilkie Collins build a story of inheritance and uncertain identity that moves from London towards the Swiss mountains.
1867 · novella · Fiction · Collaboration
Spine number 49
George Silverman's Explanation
George Silverman attempts to explain himself by looking back over his upbringing, education and attachments. His hesitant account follows a life shaped by deprivation, religious influence and difficulty making his own wishes understood.
1868 · short story · Fiction
Spine number 50
Holiday Romance
Four children take turns inventing stories, drawing on grown-up conventions while bending them to their own purposes. Their tales move through romance, adventure and fantasy with the confidence of authors who need not obey adult rules.
1868 · collection · Fiction
Spine number 51
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
In the cathedral town of Cloisterham, Edwin Drood and Rosa Bud face a marriage arranged for them in childhood. Edwin’s uncle John Jasper, the choirmaster, brings an uneasy intensity to this seemingly orderly world. Dickens died after completing six of twelve planned monthly parts, leaving the mystery unfinished; the written instalments appeared from April to September 1870.
1870 · book · Fiction · Unfinished
Spine number 52
The Mudfog Papers
Reports from the fictional Mudfog Association turn scientific meetings and public importance into comedy. These sketches first appeared in Bentley's Miscellany in 1837–1838 and were collected in book form after Dickens's death.
1880 · collection · Fiction · Posthumous
Spine number 53
The Life of Our Lord
Dickens retells the life and teachings of Jesus in direct language for his children. Written privately in 1846–1849, the narrative remained unpublished during his lifetime and first appeared in 1934.
1934 · book · Non-fiction · Posthumous
Dickens moves between comedy, danger and anger at the way people treat one another. Oliver Twist offers a direct route into that mixture; the other choices let you begin with a shorter tale or settle into a life told at greater length.
Where to begin
Start here
Oliver Twist
Oliver’s vulnerability gives this novel a clear centre, while the adults around him bring Dickens’s satire vividly to life. Choose it for a story with strong momentum and striking voices, moving between comic exaggeration and episodes of real menace.
In the collection About 10 hr 26 min at 250 words/min
For a shorter beginning
A Christmas Carol
Scrooge’s night of ghostly visits gathers Dickens’s humour, theatrical imagination and concern for other people into a compact story. Choose it if you want to try his voice before taking on one of the longer novels.
Not yet in our collection
For mystery and ambition
Great Expectations
Pip’s account lets you hear an older narrator looking back at a child’s fears, loyalties and growing dissatisfaction with his place in the world. Choose this route for an intimate voice and a sustained story in which embarrassment and affection matter as much as suspense.
Not yet in our collection
Read next
David Copperfield
For a longer stay with Dickens, try a life told by its central character, with room for school, work and the people who shape his expectations. The large returning cast rewards an unhurried reading, and David’s retrospective voice makes the changes between comedy and hardship feel personal.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1836
Sketches by Boz
collection
London streets, omnibus passengers, parish officials and precarious households fill this mixture of observation, character sketches and invented tales. Dickens’s reporter’s eye catches social pretension and hardship in the same crowded city. Pieces began appearing in newspapers and magazines in 1833; John Macrone issued two series in 1836, with illustrations by George Cruikshank.
In the collection
Published 1836
Sunday Under Three Heads
pamphlet
Dickens considers Sunday as it is lived, as strict Sabbath legislation would make it, and as he thinks it should be. Published under the name Timothy Sparks, the pamphlet defends working people's access to recreation.
In the collection
Published 1836–1837
The Pickwick Papers
book
Samuel Pickwick and three companions leave their London club to travel, observe and make themselves useful, with more goodwill than worldly experience. Coaches, inns and talkative strangers give Dickens room for an expansive comedy of misunderstandings and unexpected friendships. The novel appeared in monthly parts in 1836–1837, with the final issue combining two numbers.
In the collection
Published 1837–1839
Oliver Twist
book
A workhouse child encounters adults whose claims to kindness sit uneasily beside their treatment of him. Oliver’s search for shelter leads into a London of streetwise boys and criminal households, where a friendly welcome may be difficult to judge. The novel ran in Bentley’s Miscellany from February 1837 to April 1839; the three-volume book appeared in 1838, before the serial ended.
In the collection
Published 1838–1839
Nicholas Nickleby
book
After his father's death, Nicholas Nickleby must support his mother and sister, and is sent by his uncle to teach at a Yorkshire school. The novel follows him from that brutal household into the theatre, London lodging-houses and the uncle's schemes against the family. It was issued in twenty monthly parts from April 1838 to October 1839.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1838
Sketches of Young Gentlemen
collection
A bashful dinner guest, a swaggering theatre-goer and other social performers supply a mock guide for young ladies. Dickens finds comedy in the distance between the impression each young man hopes to make and the inconvenience he causes. Published anonymously in 1838 with illustrations by Phiz, the book answered Edward Caswall’s Sketches of Young Ladies, issued as the work of Quiz in 1837.
In the collection
Published 1840–1841
Master Humphrey's Clock
collection
Master Humphrey gathers friends around an old clock to share stories and manuscripts. The original weekly publication also carried The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge; the planned Entold volume retains the framing material and shorter pieces, with those novels supplied separately.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1840
Sketches of Young Couples
collection
Married life supplies a gallery of couples whose habits, quarrels and public performances give them away. Dickens examines the ways two people can make a shared identity out of affection, pretension or disagreement.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1840–1841
The Old Curiosity Shop
book
Nell Trent lives with her grandfather in a London shop crowded with strange old objects. His secrecy and the unwelcome attention of the moneylender Daniel Quilp make their home increasingly uneasy. The novel combines a child’s vulnerability with Dickens’s taste for theatrical eccentrics; it ran weekly in Master Humphrey’s Clock from April 1840 to February 1841.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1841
Barnaby Rudge
book
An old murder shadows families around a coaching inn near London, while religious hostility gathers force in the wider city. Barnaby, a young man with an intellectual disability, lives with his mother and keeps a talkative raven, Grip. Dickens’s first historical novel brings domestic mysteries into the world of the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780; it ran weekly in Master Humphrey’s Clock in 1841.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1842
American Notes
book
Dickens records his first journey through North America, visiting cities, public institutions and places beyond the usual tourist route. His observations of prisons, slavery, manners and public life bring the travel book into arguments about the society he encounters.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1843
A Christmas Carol
novella
Ebenezer Scrooge, a London moneylender who keeps Christmas as a waste of time, is visited on Christmas Eve by a succession of spirits. The story puts his past, the lives around him, and a possible future in front of him in a single night. Dickens wrote it in a few weeks while Martin Chuzzlewit was still appearing; Chapman and Hall published it on 19 December 1843.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1843–1844
Martin Chuzzlewit
book
Old Martin Chuzzlewit is rich and suspicious; his grandson, also Martin, falls out with him and must make his own way. The novel watches a family of legacy-hunters in England, then follows the younger Martin to America, where the republic he imagined looks less hospitable. It appeared in monthly parts from January 1843 to July 1844.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1844
The Chimes
novella
Toby Veck, a poor ticket-porter, waits for work beneath a London church tower as the year turns. The bells seem to speak, and what they show him of his daughter's prospects and the lectures of the well-fed tests his faith in the poor. Dickens wrote it in Italy; it was published on 16 December 1844 as the second of his Christmas books.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1845
The Cricket on the Hearth
novella
Carrier John Peerybingle and his young wife Dot share a home whose familiar cricket seems almost another member of the household. Visitors, neighbours and a toy merchant bring outside pressures into this domestic fairy tale about trust and appearances. Published in December 1845, it was the third of Dickens’s five Christmas books.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1846–1848
Dombey and Son
book
Paul Dombey, proud of his City house, waits for a son to inherit the firm and treats his daughter as little account. The novel follows the nursery, the school, the office and the marriages that form around that pride, as the firm's idea of succession meets people it cannot price. It ran in twenty monthly parts from October 1846 to April 1848.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1846
Pictures from Italy
book
Streets, churches, theatres and crowds shape Dickens's account of travelling in Italy. The book follows the impressions of a visitor drawn to everyday life as well as the country's celebrated buildings and pictures.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1846
The Battle of Life
novella
Grace and Marion Jeddler live with their father on the site of an old battlefield, while he insists that human life is an absurd business. Affection and competing ideas of duty give this short domestic romance its tensions. Published in December 1846 as the fourth Christmas book, it uses a village love story without the supernatural visitors of several companion volumes.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1848
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain
novella
Redlaw, a chemist who cannot forget old injuries, is offered a gift: that memory of wrong will leave him, and that he will pass the same forgetting to others. The story watches what happens to his students, a poor family and the people who have cared for him when recollection is taken away. Bradbury and Evans published The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain on 19 December 1848, the last of the Christmas books.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1849–1850
David Copperfield
book
David looks back over a childhood in Suffolk and his efforts to find a place in the world. Affectionate, absurd and intimidating adults fill his recollections, with the older narrator able to see what the child could not understand. The novel draws on parts of Dickens’s early experience, including child labour and family debt, and appeared in monthly parts from May 1849 to November 1850.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1850
A Child's Dream of a Star
short story
A brother and sister watch a bright star and imagine a connection between its light and their own lives. This brief tale uses a child's vision of the heavens to approach bereavement and remembrance.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1851–1853
A Child's History of England
book
Dickens retells English history for young readers, from ancient Britain through the reign of James II. Kings, conflicts and changes of government are presented by a narrator ready to judge the powerful rather than accept their own accounts.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1852
A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire
collection · Collaboration
A Christmas gathering provides the occasion for a series of tales told in different voices. Dickens edited this collaborative Household Words number and contributed The Poor Relation's Story and The Child's Story.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1852–1853
Bleak House
book
A Chancery suit, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, has lasted so long that the people who live by it can barely remember its origin. Esther Summerson's narrative and a third-person London story share the book, among lawyers, a deadlocked court, a lady with a secret and a fog that sits on the law. It appeared in monthly parts from March 1852 to September 1853.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1852
To Be Read at Dusk
short story
A conversation among couriers outside an Alpine inn turns to experiences that resist ordinary explanation. First published in The Keepsake, the story is also included in expanded editions of Reprinted Pieces, the collection chosen for its Entold shelf parent.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1853
Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire
collection · Collaboration
The fireside storytelling gathering returns with another set of narrators and experiences. Dickens contributed The Schoolboy's Story and Nobody's Story to this collaborative Christmas number of Household Words.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1854
Hard Times
book
In the industrial town of Coketown, Thomas Gradgrind insists that children need facts and calculations, with no room for fancy. His family and the circus girl Sissy Jupe give Dickens sharply different ways of seeing education, work and human worth. Published weekly in Household Words from April to August 1854, this is his shortest completed novel.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1854
The Seven Poor Travellers
collection · Collaboration
A visitor to a Rochester charity lodging-house arranges a Christmas meal for its six travellers. The resulting gathering frames a shared collection of stories, with Dickens providing the opening encounter and the tale of Richard Doubledick.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1855–1857
Little Dorrit
book
Amy Dorrit supports her family from outside the Marshalsea, the debtors’ prison where she was born and her father still lives. Returning to London after years abroad, Arthur Clennam finds her working in his mother’s household and begins to question the obligations surrounding them. Family dependence, financial prestige and obstructive institutions connect the novel’s many lives; it appeared in monthly parts from December 1855 to June 1857.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1855
The Holly-Tree Inn
collection · Collaboration
A traveller detained by snow at an inn finds time for recollection and storytelling. Dickens's framing contributions join tales by other writers in the Christmas number of Household Words.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1856
The Wreck of the Golden Mary
collection · Collaboration
A voyage towards California becomes an ordeal when the passengers and crew must face the loss of their ship. Dickens and his fellow contributors combine the account of a wreck with stories told during the struggle to survive.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1857
The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices
serialisation · Collaboration
Francis Goodchild and Thomas Idle travel through northern England with different ideas about how much exertion a holiday should require. Dickens and Wilkie Collins turn their journey into a mixture of comic travel writing and stories.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1857
The Perils of Certain English Prisoners
novella · Collaboration
An English settlement in Central America faces a violent attack and the capture of its inhabitants. Dickens and Wilkie Collins share a tale of danger, imprisonment and attempted escape, first published for Christmas in Household Words.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1858
A House to Let
collection · Collaboration
An elderly woman becomes curious about a seemingly empty house across the way. Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell and Adelaide Anne Procter contribute to the investigation and the stories surrounding its occupants.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1858
Reprinted Pieces
collection
Workhouses, seaside towns, detectives and everyday public nuisances furnish a collection of essays, sketches and tales. First gathered under this title in the Library Edition, the pieces draw largely on Dickens's contributions to Household Words; contents vary in later editions.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1859
A Tale of Two Cities
book
London and Paris, in the years of the French Revolution, are bound together by the released prisoner Dr Manette, his daughter Lucie, the French emigrant Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton, a dissipated lawyer who resembles Darnay. The novel follows how private loyalty is tested when revolution reaches people who thought they had escaped it. It ran weekly in All the Year Round from April to November 1859.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1859
Hunted Down
short story
An insurance manager recalls a man whose appearance and behaviour immediately aroused his suspicion. Business dealings become the starting point for a compact story of detection and concealed intentions.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1859
The Haunted House
collection · Collaboration
A man takes a house with a reputation for ghosts and invites friends to occupy its rooms. Their accounts form a collaborative Christmas collection in which apparent hauntings make room for memories and personal histories.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1860
A Message from the Sea
collection · Collaboration
A message recovered from the sea draws a captain into the affairs of a coastal community. Dickens and fellow contributors build a Christmas narrative around the discovery and the histories it brings into question.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1860–1861
Great Expectations
book
Pip remembers a childhood at the forge with his sister and her kindly husband Joe, and an alarming encounter on the Kent marshes. His growing awareness of rank and gentility unsettles the life he knows. The older Pip’s account combines affection, embarrassment and suspense, inviting readers to hear more than his younger self understands; the novel ran weekly in All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1860–1869
The Uncommercial Traveller
collection
An observer travelling on no commercial business visits streets, institutions, ports and places remembered from childhood. Dickens's recurring persona connects essays and sketches first printed in All the Year Round and later gathered into expanding collections.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1861
Tom Tiddler's Ground
collection · Collaboration
A visit to a recluse supplies the frame for stories that test the attractions of withdrawing from other people. Dickens's contributions introduce and connect a collaborative Christmas number of All the Year Round.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1862
Somebody's Luggage
collection · Collaboration
A waiter acquires abandoned luggage and discovers manuscripts among its contents. The papers provide the stories in this collaborative Christmas number, while Dickens supplies the waiter's account and parts of the recovered writing.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1863
Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings
collection · Collaboration
A London landlady tells the story of her lodging-house and the people who have become part of its life. Dickens's Mrs. Lirriper frames contributions by other writers in a Christmas number concerned with lodgers, family and care.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1864
Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy
collection · Collaboration
News of a legacy takes Mrs. Lirriper and her companions beyond their familiar London setting. Dickens returns to the landlady's voice in a collaborative sequel that surrounds her story with other contributors' tales.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1864–1865
Our Mutual Friend
book
A fortune in dust heaps is left to a young man who is supposed to have drowned on his way to marry, and the money passes to the Boffins, who once served his father. The novel follows river scavengers, a lawyer's clerk, a doll's dressmaker and people who live by what London throws away. It appeared in monthly parts from May 1864 to November 1865.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1865
Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions
collection · Collaboration
Doctor Marigold is a travelling seller whose name conceals no medical qualification. His account frames a collaborative Christmas collection presented as prescriptions, with stories offered under directions for how they should be taken.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1865
The Trial for Murder
short story
A juror finds that a murder trial is attended by a presence invisible to most of those in court. The story first appeared as To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt in Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1866
Mugby Junction
collection · Collaboration
A traveller arrives at a railway junction uncertain which direction his life should take. Dickens's linked contributions introduce the junction and its people, while other writers extend the Christmas collection along its branching lines.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1866
The Signal-Man
short story
A visitor meets a railway signalman who is troubled by an apparition beside a tunnel. The man's account connects the everyday precision of railway work with warnings he cannot explain; the story first appeared in Mugby Junction.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1867
No Thoroughfare
novella · Collaboration
The records of a foundling institution connect two lives through a shared name. Dickens and Wilkie Collins build a story of inheritance and uncertain identity that moves from London towards the Swiss mountains.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1868
George Silverman's Explanation
short story
George Silverman attempts to explain himself by looking back over his upbringing, education and attachments. His hesitant account follows a life shaped by deprivation, religious influence and difficulty making his own wishes understood.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1868
Holiday Romance
collection
Four children take turns inventing stories, drawing on grown-up conventions while bending them to their own purposes. Their tales move through romance, adventure and fantasy with the confidence of authors who need not obey adult rules.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1870
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
book · Unfinished
In the cathedral town of Cloisterham, Edwin Drood and Rosa Bud face a marriage arranged for them in childhood. Edwin’s uncle John Jasper, the choirmaster, brings an uneasy intensity to this seemingly orderly world. Dickens died after completing six of twelve planned monthly parts, leaving the mystery unfinished; the written instalments appeared from April to September 1870.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1880
The Mudfog Papers
collection · Posthumous
Reports from the fictional Mudfog Association turn scientific meetings and public importance into comedy. These sketches first appeared in Bentley's Miscellany in 1837–1838 and were collected in book form after Dickens's death.
Not yet in our collection
Published 1934
The Life of Our Lord
book · Posthumous
Dickens retells the life and teachings of Jesus in direct language for his children. Written privately in 1846–1849, the narrative remained unpublished during his lifetime and first appeared in 1934.
Not yet in our collection
Charles Dickens was an English novelist, journalist and editor who filled his fiction with the voices of streets, offices, schools and homes. An extravagant comic character can share a scene with someone in real distress, and a joke about an official’s importance can become an attack on the institution he serves. From The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist to Bleak House and Great Expectations, Dickens made entertainment and social criticism part of the same storytelling.
Born in Portsmouth in 1812, he spent part of his childhood in Chatham before his family moved to London. At twelve he worked in a blacking factory during the period when his father was imprisoned for debt in the Marshalsea. The shame and insecurity of those months remained important to him and informed his treatment of childhood and poverty. Work as a solicitor’s clerk and then a shorthand reporter brought him into courts and Parliament; his early journalism and stories were collected in Sketches by Boz in 1836. That year he married Catherine Hogarth and began the monthly publication of The Pickwick Papers, which made his name.
Writing for serial publication helped shape his use of suspense, returning characters and large, interconnected casts. He also edited Household Words and All the Year Round, working with writers including Elizabeth Gaskell and Wilkie Collins. His five Christmas books began with A Christmas Carol in 1843, and his later public readings brought his gift for dramatic voices to audiences in Britain and America. He died at Gad’s Hill Place in Kent in 1870, leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood unfinished.