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.Great Expectations (Penguin Popular Classics)

by: Charles Dickens

January 13, 1994
I first read this (actually that should say I was first forced to read this) in school over 20 years ago. I hated it. It was disected to within an inch of its life and I came to dread those lessons with a passion. What a shame that school can manage to put off even the most ardent of readers. Isn't reading supposed to be about enjoyment?

I picked this up a couple of weeks ago out of curiosity and read the first page while standing in the bookshop. Before I knew it I had read the entire first chapter and loved it. There is such humour in Dicken's books that would have been totally wasted on me as a 15 year old.

It took me a few weeks to read (hence the 4 stars as I had to concentrate more than with other books) but ... Read More:
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.Great Expectations (Penguin Classics)

by: Charles Dickens

February 16, 2004
I first read this (actually that should say I was first forced to read this) in school over 20 years ago. I hated it. It was disected to within an inch of its life and I came to dread those lessons with a passion. What a shame that school can manage to put off even the most ardent of readers. Isn't reading supposed to be about enjoyment?

I picked this up a couple of weeks ago out of curiosity and read the first page while standing in the bookshop. Before I knew it I had read the entire first chapter and loved it. There is such humour in Dicken's books that would have been totally wasted on me as a 15 year old.

It took me a few weeks to read (hence the 4 stars as I had to concentrate more than with other books) but I ... Read More:
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.A Tale of Two Cities (Penguin Popular Classics)

by: Charles Dickens

May 26, 1994
I have somehow managed to avoid reading A Tale of Two Cities until very recently. I have always been a big fan of Dickens' Christmas stories, but had avoided anything much longer, having picked up the opinion somewhere that all the novels suffered from the lack of a good editor. I had imagined dozens of pages of bleak boredom in between each set-piece, and the feeling of being short-changed for my effort at the end. For all I know this may describe the general Dickens experience, but there were, I had heard, a few exceptions to the general rules of excessive description and pointless verbosity. And I have undoubtedly found one of them in A Tale of Two Cities.

It's the story of an ex-Bastille prisoner and his daughter, who, thanks to their ... Read More:
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.Bleak House (Wordsworth Classics)

by: Charles Dickens

December 07, 1993
I've been a big fan of Dickens since reading David Copperfield about six years ago. Bleak House, which was the immediate follow-up to Copperfield, is not one of his best books.
Firstly, what happened to Dickens sense of humour, which went AWOL in Bleak House? There are some half-hearted attempts at comedy but they mostly fall flat. The warmth present in the best passages of Copperfield is also missing, though Dickens' notorious sentimentality is rampant.
Half of the book is narrated by Esther, who is more given to protestations of humility than Uriah Heep himself, except we are supposed to accept Esther as sincere, unlike the villanous Heep. Dickens' portrayal of young maidenhood has often been lampooned, and Esther is possibly the nadir, the worst ... Read More:
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.Great Expectations (Oxford World's Classics)

by: Charles Dickens

June 12, 2008
I first read this (actually that should say I was first forced to read this) in school over 20 years ago. I hated it. It was disected to within an inch of its life and I came to dread those lessons with a passion. What a shame that school can manage to put off even the most ardent of readers. Isn't reading supposed to be about enjoyment?

I picked this up a couple of weeks ago out of curiosity and read the first page while standing in the bookshop. Before I knew it I had read the entire first chapter and loved it. There is such humour in Dicken's books that would have been totally wasted on me as a 15 year old.

It took me a few weeks to read (hence the 4 stars as I had to concentrate more than with other books) but I thought it was just wonderful. ... Read More:
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.Oliver Twist (Penguin Popular Classics)

by: Charles Dickens

March 31, 1994
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens is actually a story based upon the main character of the novel, a child, Oliver Twist. Born on the day of his mother's death, the boy falls victim to great tragedies. Forced by his fortune to live in a cruel Orphan house, then to work as a servant for an undertaker. After escaping there in the pursuiance of his aims, to London, he again falls prey to wrong hands and wrong people and from there on starts the real adventure of the story. Though, the happy ending in the story gets a bit film-ish.

The language used by Dickens in the story, like his other novels, is so mesmerising that the reader feels that he is seeing the actual picture, that makes Dickens style so appealing and touchy. I just finished the whole story in a couple of ... Read More:
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.Great Expectations (Wordsworth Classics)

by: Charles Dickens

May 01, 1992
I have to admit that this is the first book by Charles Dickens that I have read. Of course, I know all the stories but have never read one, even at school. So I found myself being intrigued by what I appeared to be missing in successful novels and authors so I thought it about time that I took one up. I know this is an old classic with many reviews and many great admirers but I will just write my review based on what I thought of the story. I took an immediate dislike to the main character Pip but I can't really say why. I found him to be selfish and the part that he played with the convict was only because he was scared not to help. I found it confusing that each character seemed to have different names depending on who is refereeing to them. Great Expectation is full of irony and plot is ... Read More:
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.Hard Times (Penguin Classics)

by: Charles Dickens

January 28, 2007
I had to read this for GCSE in 1994 and it was a struggle from start to finish. It truly was 'hard times' reading this book, but something in it did appeal to me, because it didn't turn me off of Dickens. I have read further novels by him since - and not always because I have been forced to! There was a good TV series made of this book (the teacher made us watch it), with Bob Peck in it - that white hunter-type character from the first Jurassic Park film, who has since died, apparently.
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.The Christmas Books: A Christmas Carol; The Chimes; The Cricket on the Hearth (Penguin Popular Classics)

by: Charles Dickens

July 28, 1994
The first thing to point out with this collection is that it is well worth getting just for the first tale (the Christmas Carol). Christmas Carol, by far and away, more than matches the hype and is (dare I say it) genius! No other story (that I know of) imbues the spirit of christmas more perfectly and faithfully and this book is worth purchasing just for that.

However, tales two and three ('Chimes' and 'Cricket on the Hearth') are not quite so good and do let the collection down. 'Chimes' is a good story in essence: it is about a charactor called Trotty who becomes cynical about human nature and is taught a redemptive lesson by the spirits that live in the bells of the local church.
The really erksome thing is that the story never really seems to go anywhere and goes around ... Read More:
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.A Christmas Carol (Wordsworth Children's Classics)

by: Charles Dickens

October 01, 1993
It seems that lots of Christmas traditions were born in the UK between 15th and 19th century. Charles Dickens cleverly used the background of the Victorian houses and societies and produced a splendid Christmas story.

The highlight of this classic is that Mr Scrooge gradually becomes aware of his selfishness and indifference whilst being hooked on earning a lot of money for himself, while his former colleague, Marley takes him to the world where an awful number of people are suffering from the poverty. Marley who died seven years ago feels extremely guilty for ever not helping the poor when he was alive. Having become a ghost, he begs Mr Scrooge to provide goodwill to the miserable people. Moreover, he is taken to various places, in line with Christmas in his past, present, and future. ... Read More:
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