CHARLES DICKENS : TOP TWENTY NOVELS Vol. II The Christmas books [Annotated]

CHARLES DICKENS : TOP TWENTY NOVELS

Vol. I :
The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
The Adventures of Oliver Twist
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
The Old Curiosity Shop
Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty

Vol. II :
A Christmas Carol
The Chimes
The Cricket on the Hearth
The Battle of Life
The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain

Vol. III :
The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit
Dombey and Son
David Copperfield
Bleak House
Hard Times: For These Times

Vol. IV :
Little Dorrit
A Tale of Two Cities
Great Expectations
Our Mutual Friend
The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Charles John Huffam Dickens (7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic novels and characters.

Many of his writings were originally published serially, in monthly instalments or parts, a format of publication which Dickens himself helped popularise at that time. Unlike other authors who completed entire novels before serialisation, Dickens often created the episodes as they were being serialised. The practice lent his stories a particular rhythm, punctuated by cliffhangers to keep the public looking forward to the next instalment. The continuing popularity of his novels and short stories is such that they have never gone out of print.

Dickens's work has been highly praised for its realism, comedy, mastery of prose, unique personalities and concern for social reform by writers such as Leo Tolstoy, George Gissing and G.K. Chesterton; though others, such as Henry James and Virginia Woolf, have criticised it for sentimentality and implausibility.