Charles Dickens, A Very Peculiar History电子书

Cover

Front Matter

Title Page

Publisher Information

Dedication

Dickens

Quotes

Putting Dickens on the Map

Introduction

Why the Dickens?

A national treasure

Happy Christmas?

A critical reception

You can’t win them all…

A tale of two centuries

Life and works

CHAPTER ONE: WHO THE DICKENS?

Stranger than fiction

Nearest and dearest

What’s in a name?

‘Below stairs’

That’s no lady…

Instant Dickens 1: Sketches by Boz

Fact and fiction 1

What a disgrace!

More bills to pay

Instant Dickens 2: The Pickwick Papers

Fact and fiction 2

Happy days

Fact and fiction 3

Servants’ scary stories

Instant Dickens 3: Oliver Twist

Fact and fiction 4

First love

No going back

One wife, three sisters

‘Amiable and excellent’

Instant Dickens 4: Nicholas Nickleby

Not enough…

‘So perfect a creature’

Fact and fiction 5

‘I only want to be free’

Supernatural attraction!

Time to part

‘Little housekeeper’

A double life

Instant Dickens 5: The Old Curiosity Shop

Faithful friend

‘Why was I ever a father?’

Instant Dickens 6: Barnaby Rudge

CHAPTER TWO: WHERE THE DICKENS?

Letting off steam

Kill or cure

Getting the habit

Onwards... and downwards

Fact and fiction 6

Instant Dickens 7: Martin Chuzzlewit

Married life, family travels

Funny peculiar

No place like home

Boz on slums

Instant Dickens 8: A Christmas Carol

Putting on the style

America, America

A ‘stupendous property’

So near, so far

A summer retreat

Instant Dickens 9: Four more Christmas tales

‘The Inimitable Boz’

CHAPTER THREE: WHAT THE DICKENS?

In trim

My way...

Feed the mind?

A cut above

The master’s voice

Fine and dandy

Instant Dickens 10: Dombey and Son

The man behind the mask?

What they said...

Instant Dickens 11: David Copperfield

CHAPTER FOUR: WHEN THE DICKENS?

The best of times, the worst of times

Instant Dickens 12: Household Words and All the Year Round

Instant Dickens 13: Bleak House

A better future?

A ‘sentimental radical’

Novels with a cause

Which way forward?

Instant Dickens 14: Hard Times

Words not deeds?

I believe…

Happy ever after?

Instant Dickens 15: Little Dorrit

Cosy Cottage?

CHAPTER FIVE: HOW THE DICKENS?

Instant Dickens 16: A Tale of Two Cities

Step by step

How to write like Dickens

Taking the plunge

Man at Work

Rich and rare, weird and wonderful

Let me entertain you…

Instant Dickens 17: Great Expectations

Into print – Dickens and the publishing business

‘Working the copyrights’

Instant Dickens 18: Our Mutual Friend

A taste of Dickens

A few last words…

Instant Dickens 19: The Mystery of Edwin Drood

‘Fullness Of Life & Energy’

A dreadful memory

Unfair advantage

An ideal student?

Hello sailor!

Who woz Boz?

Glossary

End matter

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