It is widely known that Charles Dickens gave public readings of his works, and that those readings were enormously popular. Far less well known are the stories themselves; these were not, as is the modern fashion, taken verbatim from the published novels. Instead, Dickens trimmed, reworded, and re-shaped material from the novels to create stories that would be self-contained artistic entities. These concise “performance fictions,” shaped in every way to be accessible to a broad audience, are in many ways an ideal introduction to Dickens’s work for the modern reader. Four of the most successful of these short works have been selected for this volume, including “The Story of Little Dombey” (perhaps the most emotionally affecting of all the readings, and described by Dickens as his “greatest triumph everywhere”) and the violent and suspenseful “Sikes and Nancy” (Dickens’s overpowering performances of which were said to have contributed to his death). Provided in the contextual materials is a selection of reviews and contemporary descriptions that comment on Dickens’s manner of performance and audience reception. A brief excerpt from Dombey and Son is also included, illustrating the extensive revision process that led to “The Story of Little Dombey.”

There is a persistent myth about the British: that we are a nation of stoics, with stiff upper lips, repressed emotions, and inactive lachrymal glands. Weeping Britannia - the first history of crying in Britain - comprehensively debunks this myth. Far from being a persistent element in the 'national character', the notion of the British stiff upper lip was in fact the product of a relatively brief and militaristic period of our past, from about 1870 to 1945. In earlier times we were a nation of proficient, sometimes virtuosic moral weepers. To illustrate this perhaps surprising fact, Thomas Dixon charts six centuries of weeping Britons, and theories about them, from the medieval mystic Margery Kempe in the early fifteenth century, to Paul Gascoigne's famous tears in the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup. In between, the book includes the tears of some of the most influential figures in British history, from Oliver Cromwell to Margaret Thatcher (not forgetting George III, Queen Victoria, Charles Darwin, and Winston Churchill along the way). But the history of weeping in Britain is not simply one of famous tear-stained individuals. These tearful micro-histories all contribute to a bigger picture of changing emotional ideas and styles over the centuries, touching on many other fascinating areas of our history. For instance, the book also investigates the histories of painting, literature, theatre, music and the cinema to discover how and why people have been moved to tears by the arts, from the sentimental paintings and novels of the eighteenth century and the romantic music of the nineteenth, to Hollywood weepies, expressionist art, and pop music in the twentieth century. Weeping Britannia is simultaneously a museum of tears and a philosophical handbook, using history to shed new light on the changing nature of Britishness over time, as well as the ever-shifting ways in which we express and understand our emotional lives. The story that emerges is one in which a previously rich religious and cultural history of producing and interpreting tears was almost completely erased by the rise of a stoical and repressed British empire in the late nineteenth century. Those forgotten philosophies of tears and feeling can now be rediscovered. In the process, readers might perhaps come to view their own tears in a different light, as something more than mere emotional incontinence.

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........

In all six of its volumes The Broadview Anthology of British Literature presents British literature in a truly distinctive light. Fully grounded in sound literary and historical scholarship, the anthology takes a fresh approach to many canonical authors, and includes a wide selection of work by lesser-known writers. The anthology also provides wide-ranging coverage of the worldwide connections of British literature, and it pays attention throughout to issues of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. It includes comprehensive introductions to each period, providing in each case an overview of the historical and cultural as well as the literary background. It features accessible and engaging headnotes for all authors, extensive explanatory annotations, and an unparalleled number of illustrations and contextual materials. Innovative, authoritative and comprehensive, The Broadview Anthology of British Literature has established itself as a leader in the field. The full anthology comprises six bound volumes, together with an extensive website component; the latter has been edited, annotated, and designed according to the same high standards as the bound book component of the anthology, and is accessible by using the passcode obtained with the purchase of one or more of the bound volumes. For the second edition of this volume a number of changes have been made. Elizabeth Gaskell’s “Our Society at Cranford” has been added, as has Anthony Trollope’s “A Turkish Bath.” Charles Dickens is now represented with a number of short selections. The selection of poems by D.G. Rossetti has been expanded considerably (the entire 1870 House of Life sequence is included), as has that by Michael Field. A selection of poems by two key figures who also appear in the anthology’s twentieth century volume (Thomas Hardy and W.B. Yeats) is also now included. Several of the Contexts sections in the volume have been expanded—notably “The Place of Women in Society,” which now includes material concerning the Contagious Diseases Acts) and “Britain, Empire, and a Wider World,” which now includes a section on the Great Exhibition of 1851. The volume will also include additional visual material—including four more pages of full color illustrations. Inevitably, some selections have been dropped from the bound book; these will all remain available, however, on the anthology’s website component. The most significant change in that direction is Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. As well as remaining available on the website, that work—like Hard Times, Great Expectations, and approximately 100 other titles from the Victorian period, is available as a stand-alone volume in the Broadview Editions series, and may be added (at little or no additional cost to the student) in a shrink-wrapped combination package.

Charles Dickens' 'A Dickens Boxed Set' is a comprehensive collection of the acclaimed author's works, including 20 novels, over 200 short stories, plays, poems, and articles. The collection showcases Dickens' versatile writing style, ranging from social commentary to ghost stories, all set against the backdrop of Victorian England. Readers will be captivated by Dickens' intricate plots, vivid characters, and poignant themes that continue to resonate with modern readers. This boxed set offers a glimpse into the literary world of one of the most influential writers of the 19th century. Dickens' use of satire, humor, and compassion makes this collection a must-read for any literature enthusiast. Dive into the pages of this boxed set to experience the timeless brilliance of Charles Dickens' storytelling. With something for everyone, from the casual reader to the serious literary scholar, 'A Dickens Boxed Set' is a treasure trove of literary gems waiting to be explored.

This carefully crafted ebook: “The Complete Works of Charles Dickens” is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: Novels Oliver Twist The Pickwick Papers Nicholas Nickleby The Old Curiosity Shop Barnaby Rudge Martin Chuzzlewit Dombey and Son David Copperfield Bleak House Hard Times Little Dorrit A Tale of Two Cities Great Expectations Our Mutual Friend The Mystery of Edwin Drood Christmas Novellas A Christmas Carol The Chimes The Cricket on the Hearth The Battle of Life The Haunted Man Short Story Collections Sketches by Boz Sketches of Young Gentlemen Sketches of Young Couples Master Humphrey' Clock Reprinted Pieces The Mudfog Papers Pearl-Fishing (First Series) Pearl-Fishing (Second Series) Christmas Stories Other Stories Children's Books Child's Dream of a Star Holiday Romance Stories About Children Every Child Can Read Dickens's Children Plays The Village Coquettes The Strange Gentleman The Lamplighter Is She His Wife Mr. Nightingale's Diary No Thoroughfare The Frozen Deep Poetry The Loving Ballad of Lord Bateman The Poems and Verses of Charles Dickens Travel Books American Notes Pictures From Italy The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices Other Works Sunday Under Three Heads A Child's History of England Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi The Life of Our Lord The Uncommercial Traveller Contributions to “All The Year Round” Contributions to “The Examiner” Miscellaneous Papers Essays & Articles A Coal Miner's Evidence The Lost Arctic Voyagers Frauds on the Fairies Adelaide Anne Procter In Memoriam W. M. Thackeray Speeches of Charles Dickens: Literary and Social Letters of Charles Dickens Criticism CHARLES DICKENS by G. K. Chesterton DICKENS by Sir Adolphus William Ward THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS by John Forster MY FATHER AS I RECALL HIM by Mamie D. Charles Dickens (1812-1870), an English writer and social critic, created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.

The two-volume Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Concise Edition provides an attractive alternative to the full six-volume anthology. Though much more compact, the Concise Edition nevertheless provides substantial choice, offering both a strong selection of canonical authors and a sampling of lesser-known works. With an unparalleled selection of illustrations and of contextual materials, accessible and engaging introductions, and full explanatory annotations, these volumes provide concise yet extraordinarily wide-ranging coverage for British Literature survey courses. New to this volume are Samuel Beckett’s Endgame and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; new authors include Dorothy Wordsworth, John Clare, Tomson Highway, Derek Walcott, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. The third edition now also offers substantially expanded representation of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh literatures, as well as contextual materials on Gothic literature, Modernism, and World War II. Material that no longer appears in the bound book may in most cases be found on the companion website; many larger works are also available in separate volumes that may at the instructor’s request be bundled together with the anthology at no extra cost to the student. Features New to the Third Edition — New longer texts including Dickens’s performance reading of “David Copperfield,” Gaskell’s The Manchester Marriage, Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Beckett’s Endgame — New short selections from longer works including Eliot’s Middlemarch, Shelley’s Frankenstein, Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh, and Tennyson’s In Memoriam A.H.H. — New bound-book author entries for Dorothy Wordsworth, John Clare, Emily Brontë, Thomas de Quincey, Walter Pater, Isaac Rosenberg, Tomson Highway, Derek Walcott, Jeanette Winterson, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie — New selections representing “Literary Currents in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales in the Long Nineteenth Century” — New “Contexts” section on “Gothic Literature” including materials by Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, and Jane Austen — “Literature, Politics, and Cultural Identity” section includes numerous new authors and pieces, including work by Sorely MacLean, James Kelman, Gillian Clarke, Kamau Brathwaite, Kim Moore, and Warsan Shire