Showing results by author "ciesse" in All Categories

After the death of his father, Nicholas must provide for his mother and sister. His wealthy uncle provides him with employment at a boys' school, run by the villainous Mr. Squeers. But when Nicholas has seen enough of the brutal manner in which Squeers treats the boys, he attacks him--and is forced to go on the run to avoid the ramifications. - Summary by Brad "Hamlet" Filippone

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the final novel by Charles Dickens. The novel was left unfinished at the time of Dickens' death, and readers have often speculated what the ending might have been. The novel is named after Edwin Drood, but it mostly tells the story of his uncle, a Jekyll-and-Hyde-esque choirmaster named John Jasper, who is in love with his pupil, Rosa Bud. Miss Bud is Drood's fiancée, and has caught the eye of the high-spirited and hot-tempered Neville Landless, who comes from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) with his twin sister, Helena, and immediately makes an enemy of Drood. It is ...

Dickens' last complete novel was published serially 1864-5. It begins with an intriguing fortune offered to John Harmon by his late father, a rich dust contractor, in his will. To receive the money, John must marry a certain Bella Wilfer who he does not know from Eve. He is returning from the exile enforced by his father and confides in a ship's mate who attempts to murder him. The mate gets killed instead, leaving one inconvenient corpse. Because John is considered dead (the body is found with his papers), the money passes to Mr Boffin, old Harmon's foreman. Harmon adopts Bella and John comes...

One of Dickens' Christmas stories, this was first published as part of the Christmas number of Household Words for 1854. The first chapter relates Dickens' visit to the ancient Richard Watts's Charity at Rochester. The second chapter is the touching story of "Richard Doubledick", which Dickens supposedly told the travellers, and Dickens' journey home on Christmas morning provides the short concluding chapter. (Summary by Ruth Golding)

Esta obra narra la vida de David Copperfield desde su infancia hasta la madurez. El padre de David muere seis meses antes de que él naciera, y siete años después, su madre se vuelve a casar, pero David y su padrastro no se llevan bien, y DAvid es enviado por ello a un internado. A medida que David va labrando su vida, nos encontramos con una deslumbrante variedad de amigos, compañeros, familiares, el amor, los celos,la miseria, la avaricia, la traición, unos personajes inolvidables y otros que no querremos recordar, hasta el descubrimiento, al final de su vida, de una felicidad completa. ...

A House to Let is a short story originally published in 1858 in the Christmas edition of Dickens' Household Words magazine. Each of the contributors wrote a chapter (stories within a story, or, in the case of Adelaide Anne Procter, poetry) and the story was edited by Dickens, who also wrote the first and last chapters with Wilkie Collins. The plot concerns an elderly woman, Sophonisba, who notices signs of life in a supposedly empty dilapidated house (the eponymous "House to Let") opposite her own, and employs the efforts of an elderly admirer, Jabez Jarber, and her servant, Trottle, to ...

Hard Times, the shortest of Dickens's full-length novels, is set in the fictitious Victorian-England city of Coketown, where facts are the rule and all fancy is to be stamped out. The plot centers around the men and women of the town, some of whom are beaten down by the city's utilitarian ideals and some of whom manage to rise above it. The novel was written in 1854 and was a scathing attack on then-current ideas of utilitarianism, which Dickens viewed as a selfish and at times oppressive philosophy. Perhaps the novel's best features are its clever, ironic narration and the larger-than-life ...

Before he started writing novels, Charles Dickens tried his hand at theater. The Village Coquettes is a two act musical. Sadly the music was lost long ago so this will be a spoken version. This play completes the recording of the relatively unknown plays of Dickens in celebration of his 200th birthday! (Summary by ToddHW)CastSquire Norton: ToddThe Honorable Sparkins Flam: Elizabeth KlettOld Benson: Alan MapstoneMr. Martin Stokes: Brett W. DowneyGeorge Edmunds: engineerdstYoung Benson: Charlotte DuckettJohn Maddox: John TrevithickLucy Benson: Amanda FridayRose: Eden Rea-HedrickServant: ...

Before he became a novelist, Dickens wrote several successful plays. This one from 1836, his first, he called, “A Comic Burletta in Two Acts”. Characters arrive at a village inn called “The St. James Arms” and much confusion ensues. (Summary by ToddHW)Cast:MR. OWEN OVERTON: NoelBadrianJOHN JOHNSON: Nathanial W.C. HigginsTHE STRANGE GENTLEMAN: David GoldfarbCHARLES TOMKINS: Algy PugTOM SPARKS: John TrevithickJOHN, TOM, WILL - Waiters 1, 2, 3: ToddHWJULIA DOBBS: Tiffany Halla ColonnaFANNY WILSON: Amanda FridayMARY WILSON: DuanMRS. NOAKES: Christine NendzaCHAMBERMAID: Eden ...

Cuento largo o novela breve de intriga y suspense escrita por Charles Dickens. El inicio es ya prometedor: No hace al caso referir la manera cómo supe lo que voy a contar aquí ni quién me lo refirió ... Baste saber que lo ahorcaron y que su historia es como sigue... (Summary by Epachuko)

A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a historical novel by Charles Dickens; it is moreover a moral novel strongly concerned with themes of guilt, shame, redemption and patriotism.The plot centers on the years leading up to French Revolution and culminates in the Jacobin Reign of Terror. It tells the story of two men, Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton, who look very alike but are entirely different in character.(Summary from Wikipedia)

Charles Dickens' 1854 novel opens with the philosophy of education espoused by the eminently practical Mr. Gradgrind, who prizes "facts and calculations." He raises his children, most prominently Louisa and Tom, to eschew imagination and emotion and embrace order and reason. The results are disastrous: Louisa marries out of duty to the supposed self-made man Mr. Bounderby, while Tom grows up dissolute, ultimately commits theft and blames it on an unfortunate laborer, Stephen Blackpool. Set in the fictional Coketown, a mill town in the north of England, Dickens' novel satirizes capitalism, ...

“Who ever lov’d, that lov’d not at first sight?”The wonder-decade of the English drama was suddenly interrupted in 1592, when serious plague broke out in London, forcing the closure of the theatres. Leading playwrights took to penning languorously erotic poetry to make ends meet: so we have Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece - and Marlowe’s blazing masterpiece, Hero and Leander.Marlowe’s poem became more notorious than either of Shakespeare’s, due not only to its homophile provocations but also to the scandal attaching to every aspect of Marlowe’s brief life, violently ended...

Humorist Bill Nye, in his brief 46 years, served as justice of the peace, newspaperman, miner, and postmaster in the rough town of Laramie, Wyoming. This 1901 edition, published after his death, includes a Biographical tribute to Nye, quoting his dear friend, Hoosier poet James Whitcomb Riley: "He was unselfish wholly, and I am broken-hearted, recalling the always patient strength and gentleness of this true man, the unfailing hope and cheer and faith of his child-heart, his noble and heroic life, and pure devotion to his home, his deep affections, constant dreams, plans and realizations." ...

The hilarious diary of a young man's recruitment into, and service in a navy, which, though well equipped and disciplined, remains woefully ill prepared for his arrival and dubious contribution. (Introduction by Nigel Boydell)

"Brazilian Tales" is a collection of six short stories selected by Isaac Goldberg as best representative of the Brazilian Literature of his period - the end of the 19th century. His comprehensive preface aims at familiarizing the reader with a literature that was - and still is - virtually unknown outside the boundaries of its own land, and the pieces chosen by Goldberg to be translated belong to writers that reached popularity and appreciation while still alive. This "pioneer volume", as the translator himself puts it, still keeps its charm and interest as a way of offering to the English ...

Part almanac, part encyclopedia, part dictionary, Nathaniel C. Fowler, Jr. gives us his idea of important, but sometimes obscure, facts that he thinks should be in our bank of general knowledge. He includes a large section on medical emergency and health. Items are arranged in alphabetical order, so there is no logical presentation, but reference is made easy. Or, it is just interesting browsing, and a glimpse into the world of the early twentieth century. - Summary by Larry Wilson

When orphaned Oliver Twist asks for more food, the workhouse board are horrified and immediately pack him off to work for an undertaker, who treats him badly. Oliver runs away and finds himself in the streets of London, where he meets the Artful Dodger and is lured into a gang of young pickpockets, led by the evil Fagin. Even amidst his horrible surroundings, Oliver escapes and finds his way into a loving home. But Fagin's gang are determined to steal him back to their life of crime, coming closer and closer...Dickens' classic tale of an orphan boy who has adventures with pickpockets and ...

"Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich" is a work of humorous fiction by Stephen Leacock first published in 1914. It is the follow-up to his 1912 classic "Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town." Like that work, it is a sequence of interlocking stories set in one town, but instead of focusing on a small Canadian town in the countryside, it is set in a major American metropolis and its characters are the upper crust of society. Although currently not as well-known as the earlier book, "Arcadian Adventures" was extremely popular in North America at the time of its publication and for a while was ...

There are certain names which are familiar, as names, to all mankind; and every person who seeks for any degree of mental cultivation, feels desirous of informing himself of the leading outlines of their history, that he may know, in brief, what it was in their characters or their doings which has given them so widely-extended a fame. Consequently, great historical names alone are selected; and it has been the writer's aim to present the prominent and leading traits in their characters, and all the important events in their lives, in a bold and free manner, and yet in the plain and simple ...