Charles Dickens

Heaven knows, we need never be ashamed of our wolfish cravings. . . . Bristly, sensitive, and meat-hungry Pip is a robust young whelp, an orphan born under a full moon. Between hunting escaped convicts alongside zombified soldiers, trying not to become one of the hunted himself, and hiding his hairy hands from the supernaturally beautiful and haughty Estella, whose devilish moods keep him chomping at the bit, Pip is sure he will die penniless or a convict like the rest of his commonly uncommon kind. But then a mysterious benefactor sends him to London for the finest werewolf education money can buy. In the company of other furry young gentlemen, Pip tempers his violent transformations and devours the secrets of his dark world. When he discovers that his beloved Estella is a slayer of supernatural creatures, trained by the corpse-like vampire Miss Havisham, Pip's desire for her grows stronger than his midnight hunger for rare fresh beef. But can he risk his hide for a truth that will make Estella his forever--or will she drive one last silver stake through his heart?

Oliver Twist's life has been a hard and desperate one. With his mother dying during his birth, and having no idea who his father was, Oliver has spent his first nine years struggling to survive in a world that has little pity for a poor orphansuch as him. After Oliver gets involved with the nefarious Fagin and the sinister Bill Sikes, he is wounded during a burglary. Oliver is rescued by Sikes's intended victims, the young Rose Maylie, and her guardian, Mrs Maylie. At last, the boy finds a lovinghome and people who care for him. But how long will Oliver's happiness endure, especially when Fagin begins to conspire with a mysterious stranger with a link to the boy's past?

Ebenezer Scrooge is a mean-spirited, nasty old man who holds everything in contempt - even Christmas! But when three spirits visit him one ghostly Christmas Eve, Scrooge is taken on a journey into the past, present and future that will change him forever.

"Psychologically the latter part of Great Expectations is about the best thing Dickens ever did." --George Orwell Philip Pirrip--known more commonly as Pip--is an orphan. His visits to the mysterious Miss Havisham are his only escape from his childhood of poverty. But then an anonymous bequest changes his life for ever--until secrets from Pip's past emerge, threatening to destroy the genteel new life he has built for himself, and Pip soon discovers the merciless cruelty of love, and the harsh reality of his great expectations.

After 18 years of imprisonment in the Bastille, the devoted Doctor Manette is reunited with his daughter, the gentle Lucie, in England. There she captures the hearts of two very different men--Charles Darney, a banished French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a well-known English lawyer, both of whom must compete for her love. With a twisting plot of revenge, corruption, and love played out under the shadow of the guillotine, this is one of Dickens' most exciting stories.

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"Psychologically the latter part of Great Expectations is about the best thing Dickens ever did." --George Orwell Philip Pirrip--known more commonly as Pip--is an orphan. His visits to the mysterious Miss Havisham are his only escape from his childhood of poverty. But then an anonymous bequest changes his life for ever--until secrets from Pip's past emerge, threatening to destroy the genteel new life he has built for himself, and Pip soon discovers the merciless cruelty of love, and the harsh reality of his great expectations.

As a small boy at Joe Gargery's forge, Pip meets two people who will affect his whole life - an escaped convict he is forced to help, and the eccentric Miss Haversham, whose beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella young Pip adores. But when a secret benefactor pays for him to go to London to become a gentleman, Pip never dreams he will meet the dreadful Magwitch again, nor just how wrong his expectations are.

With a gorgeous new jacket for this edition including original artwork by Gracie Carver, based on the famous Luke Fildes illustration, THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD completed by David Madden is sure to continue to offer the true Dickensian vision of this classic." David Madden's continuation must be regarded as one of the very best conclusions of the mystery to date. He magically recreates the tone and atmosphere of the original novel as he weaves together the threads Dickens left behind - producing a first-rate ending that remains faithful to both the existing fragment and its author." Professor Don Richard Cox, doyen of Droodian studies, and author of the Annotated Bibliography

Charles Dickens is little celebrated as a journalist, yet his career spanned nearly 40 years. Starting as a court reporter, parliamentary newspaper columnist and theatre critic, he developed an instinct for injustice, humbug and charade. For 20 years he edited his own weekly journal, Household Words, later known as All the Year Round, publishing articles and stories designed to be interesting, entertaining and educational. Dickens had a keen interest in Australia and fortuitously began publishing the periodical at a transitional moment, just before the heady days of the 1850s gold rush set the world ablaze. The discovery of gold drove a period of mass immigration and expansion into the hinterlands, and caused radical economic and social changes in an emerging nation. Of the nearly 3,000 articles published in Household Words, some 100 related to Australia and have been collected in this anthology. Dickens saw Australia as offering opportunities for England's poor and downtrodden to make a new start and a brighter future for themselves; this optimism is reflected in many of the articles. The stories have been grouped into five volumes: Convict Stories, Immigration, Frontier Stories, Mining and Gold and Maritime Conditions. The stories in this volume examine important questions faced by prospective immigrants: how to prepare, what to take to Australia, how to recognise a suitable vessel to sail on, and where to go for advice before embarking on this life-changing adventure.

This volume has stories about the unsafe, damp and cramped living conditions at sea endured by emigrants and sailors alike. The articles highlight the need to improve the desperate conditions and the need for a faster route for ships to travel. There is also a whaling story that paints a vivid picture of a whale chase in the hazardous waters south of Hobart.

Charles Dickens is little celebrated as a journalist, yet his career spanned nearly 40 years. Starting as a court reporter, parliamentary newspaper columnist and theatre critic, he developed an instinct for injustice, humbug and charade. For 20 years he edited his own weekly journal, Household Words, later known as All the Year Round, publishing articles and stories designed to be interesting, entertaining and educational. Dickens had a keen interest in Australia and fortuitously began publishing the periodical at a transitional moment, just before the heady days of the 1850s gold rush set the world ablaze. The discovery of gold drove a period of mass immigration and expansion into the hinterlands, and caused radical economic and social changes in an emerging nation. Of the nearly 3,000 articles published in Household Words, some 100 related to Australia and have been collected in this anthology. Dickens saw Australia as offering opportunities for England's poor and downtrodden to make a new start and a brighter future for themselves; this optimism is reflected in many of the articles. The stories have been grouped into five volumes: Convict Stories, Immigration, Frontier Stories, Mining and Gold and Maritime Conditions. This volume contains stories on the experiences of convicts. Beginning with court processes and sentencing in Britain, the stories provide an insight into the conditions of prisoners on board ships to Australia and in prisons, and the range of treatments received by convicts until their conditional or final pardon.