Paul Dombey is a cold, unbending, pompous merchant, and a widower with two children - Paul and Florence. His chief ambition is to perpetuate the firm-name. He dreams of passing his business on to his son. Dombey dotes on his son, and neglects and mistreats his daughter.The "son" in the title of the book is incapable of ever joining the firm. A sickly and odd child, Paul dies at the age of six. Dombey pours his resentment and anger out on his daughter, whom he pushes away despite her efforts to earn her father's love.Eventually Dombey remarries, after literally acquiring his new wife from her father in a commercial transaction. Dombey is as bad a husband as he is a father and his marriage is loveless. His new bride hates Dombey and eventually runs off with Canker, his business manager. Dombey characteristically blames Florence for this reversal, and strikes her, causing Florence to run away as well.Abandoned by everyone, Dombey loses his business and goes half insane, living in his decaying house. Dombey is eventually reconciled to his daughter, who always a doormat forgives her father........

First published in 1993. This annotated bibliography covers all material relating to A Tale o f Two Cities from Dickens’s first hints of it in his Book o f Memoranda to critical studies published in 1991. It is divided into three main parts: “Text,” “Studies,” and “Selected Bibliography.”

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is the second historical novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. It depicts the plight of the French proletariat under the brutal oppression of the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, and the corresponding savage brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution. It follows the lives of several protagonists through these events, most notably Charles Darnay, a French once-aristocrat who falls victim to the indiscriminate wrath of the revolution despite his virtuous nature, and Sydney Carton, a dissipated English barrister who endeavours to redeem his ill-spent life out of love for Darnay's wife, Lucie Manette. A Child's History of England is a book by Charles Dickens. It first appeared in serial form in Household Words, running from 25 January 1851 to 10 December 1853. Dickens also published the work in book form in three volumes: the first volume on 20 December 1851, the second on 25 December 1852 and the third on 24 December 1853.

"Phiz" is a biography about Hablot Knight Browne, an English artist and illustrator. Well-known by his pen name, Phiz, he illustrated books by Charles Dickens, Charles Lever, and Harrison Ainsworth. Excerpt: "Fizz, Whizz, or something of that sort," humorous Tom Hood would say when trying to recall the pseudonym that has since become so familiar using the innumerable works of art to which it was appended. At the time Hablot Knight Browne first used this quaint sobriquet, it was customary to look upon book-illustrators as second, or even third-rate artists—mere hacks..."

Phiz - real name Hablot Knight Browne - worked together with Charles Dickens for over 20 years, illustrating some of the best known characters in English literature. This book profiles the life of Phiz, which was as rich and colourful as any of Dickens' own creations.