Bleak House is the great writer’s grandest, most virtuosic achievement.
Top 10 Charles Dickens Novels
Counting Down Dickens’ Greatest Novels. Number 2: Great Expectations
The older Dickens got, the darker his books. With Great Expectations, he asks: How long can a society ignore the nefarious, corrupt or compromised sources of its wealth?
Top 10 Non-Dickens Books for Dickens Fans
Dickens wrote fourteen and a half novels, which means that any devotee of his work runs the risk of running out. I recommend the titles below to fill the void and expand your sense of both his literary scene and his legacy. …
Counting Down Dickens’ Greatest Novels. Number 3: Little Dorrit
Contemporary critical reception of Dickens’ 11th novel was mixed, but in keeping with the gradual swing toward appreciation of the darker Dickens, it now stands as proof of his genius.
Counting Down Dickens’ Greatest Novels. Number 4: David Copperfield
Every time I read the book I think, the story of a boy who overcomes adversity and grows up to be a writer? That’s the most cliché first-novel idea around. Except that it was Dickens’ eighth, and it marked a departure.
Counting Down Dickens’ Greatest Novels. Number 5: Our Mutual Friend
Our Mutual Friend has one major flaw, for which I can’t quite forgive it. But it also has some of Dickens’ strangest, most haunting characters.
Counting Down Dickens’ Greatest Novels. Number 6: A Tale of Two Cities
Forget for a moment that it has become one of the most clichéd passages in literature, and read the opening sentence of A Tale of Two Cities:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was
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Counting Down Dickens’ Greatest Novels. Number 7: The Pickwick Papers
For decades after Dickens’ death, The Pickwick Papers remained his most beloved book. It has largely fallen off the map, but once you’ve read Pickwick, you see how crucial it is to the Dickens canon.
Counting Down Dickens’ Greatest Novels. Number 8: Hard Times
Dickens’ shortest novel is very taut, and occasionally some sharp little passage arrives that reminds you of his more expansive greatness.
Counting Down Dickens’ Greatest Novels. Number 9: Dombey and Son
When the death scene in Dombey and Son was published, all of England was apparently prostrated by grief.
Counting Down Dickens’ Greatest Novels. Number 10: Oliver Twist
“Please sir, I want some more”
Oliver Twist was Dickens’ second novel, and my first. My grandmother read it to me and my sister when we were young. We loved the part when meek little orphan Oliver, born out of wedlock in …