Essential Classics (Illustrated)

Charles Dickens

Mar 2013 · eBookIt.com

About this ebook

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea - Jules Verne
Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen
The Count of Monte Cristo- Alexandre Dumas
Treasure Island- Robert Louis Stevenson
Heart of Darkness- Joseph Conrad
Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte
Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte
The Island of Doctor Moreau- H. G. Wells
Oliver Twist- Charles Dickens
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn- Mark Twain
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
War and Peace- Leo Tolstoy
Great Expectations- Charles Dickens
Les Misa(c)rables- Victor Hugo
The Odyssey- Homer
Little Women- Louisa May Alcott
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland- Lewis Carroll
The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde
Moby Dick; or The Whale- Herman Melville
Don Quixote- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Ulysses- James Joyce
A Tale of Two Cities- Charles Dickens
The Call of the Wild- Jack London

About the author

Charles Dickens, perhaps the best British novelist of the Victorian era, was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England on February 7, 1812. His happy early childhood was interrupted when his father was sent to debtors' prison, and young Dickens had to go to work in a factory at age twelve. Later, he took jobs as an office boy and journalist before publishing essays and stories in the 1830s. His first novel, The Pickwick Papers, made him a famous and popular author at the age of twenty-five. Subsequent works were published serially in periodicals and cemented his reputation as a master of colorful characterization, and as a harsh critic of social evils and corrupt institutions. His many books include Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Great Expectations, Little Dorrit, A Christmas Carol, and A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in 1836, and the couple had nine children before separating in 1858 when he began a long affair with Ellen Ternan, a young actress. Despite the scandal, Dickens remained a public figure, appearing often to read his fiction. He died in 1870, leaving his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished.