Showing results by author "Charles Dickens" in All Categories

'If I had my way, every idiot who goes around with Merry Christmas on his lips, would be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. Merry Christmas? Bah humbug!' Charles Dickens’ ghostly tale of sour and stingy miser Ebenezer Scrooge has captivated readers, listeners and audiences for over 150 years. This Christmas, Audible Studios brings this story to life in an audio drama featuring an all-star cast.

'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times'; so the recording begins and ends with some of Dickens's best-known words, and between those lines is every Briton's view of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. Set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution, the audiobook tells the story of a French doctor who is imprisoned for 18 years in the Bastille in Paris. Upon his release, he moves to London with his daughter, Lucie, whom he had never met.

Deeply distressed at thought of his singularly money-minded family circling around his inevitable death bed, when Old Martin Chuzzlewit comes across a young and kindly orphan girl, he immediately decides to take her into his employment. Offering her a comfortable living in exchange for her care and protection, Martin rests easy in the knowledge that her comfort will last only as long as he does; upon his death, Mary the orphan will find herself on the cold and dirty streets from whence she came.

When young orphan, Oliver Twist, is sold into an apprenticeship with an undertaker, he leaves behind years of miserable servitude and mistreatment at an English workhouse. Hoping to move on to better things, he decides to escape his new, equally dreary surroundings and head to London. It is there that the novel unravels as Oliver meets a host of larger-than-life characters, including The Artful Dodger, a high-ranking member of a juvenile pickpocketing gang, and their elderly leader, Fagin.

"Every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding," says Ebenezer Scrooge. Mean old Scrooge despises Christmas until Christmas Eve, when a haunted voice from the past changes his life: overnight! Many know this story but few have experienced the true marvel of the tale.

After reading Christmas Carol, the notoriously reclusive Thomas Carlyle was 'seized with a perfect convulsion of hospitality' and threw not one but two Christmas dinner parties. The impact of the story may not always have been so dramatic but, along with Dickens' other Christmas writings, it has had a lasting and significant influence upon our ideas about the Christmas spirit and about the season as a time for celebration, charity and memory.

Charles Dickens' first novel, The Pickwick Papers, is here performed by his great, great grandson Gerald Dickens. The members of the Pickwick Club travel throughout the English countryside by coach and report back on their findings to the other members. The novel includes many memorable characters involved in numerous comical misadventures.

Despite the title, Dickens's portrayal of early industrial society is less relentlessly grim than that in novels by contemporaries such as Elizabeth Gaskell or Charles Kingsley. Hard Times weaves the tale of Thomas Gradgrind, a hard-headed politician who raises his children Louisa and Tom without love and to have no empathy, their lives completely devoid of beauty, culture, or imagination. Only after a series of crises does their father realise that the manner in which he raised his children has ruined their lives.

Jason Watkins, the award-winning stage and screen actor best-known for his roles in The Lost Honour and A Very English Scandal, masterfully performs this brand-new recording of Barnaby Rudge; first published in 1841, it was Dickens’ fifth title and his first historical novel. Set against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, Barnaby Rudge reflects back on a time of revolt against the British parliament, following the Catholic Relief Act of 1778.

The case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce has ground its way through the courts for generations. At its heart are Ada Clare and Richard Carstone, who find love - and terrible loss - through their involvement in the endless battle. Meanwhile, her friend Esther Summeson, who believes she is an orphan, gradually discovers the truth of her identity. The court case throws out a web ensnaring all who come near it, including Lady Dedlock, the menacing lawyer Tulkingham, detective Bucket and tragic little waif Jo.

A mysterious boatman on the Thames, a drowned heir, a dustman and his wife, and a host of other Dickens characters populate this novel of relationships between the classes, money, greed, and love. The 58 characters are presented with remarkable clarity by David Timson.

London. A city drowning in fog. Amid that fog, a man with no name dies above a strange junkshop. Threads of mist and intrigue weave around a court case with no resolution, linking great country houses with the lowest slum in the city, mingling the high-born with a boy who sweeps the filthy streets, enshrouding devious plots and sudden murder, bringing together two extraordinary women – Lady Dedlock and Esther Summerson - who seem to have nothing whatsoever in common but who will find themselves inextricably linked.

Unique to this title is: A historical introduction and a study of the themes present in A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol and The Chimes. Charles Dickens was an English writer and social critic. He was born in 1812 in Portsmouth. When his father was sent to jail because of unsettled debt, Dickens had to leave school and get a job in a factory. Dickens is believed to be the best novelist of the Victorian era and he became very popular during his lifetime. His novels are still widely read and translated.

Pip is an orphan, brought up in a village on the Essex marshes by his disagreeable sister and her husband Joe Gargery, the kind-hearted village blacksmith. Life is harsh and Pip has few prospects until he receives from an anonymous benefactor the chance of escaping the forge for a more promising life in London. But his expectations are fraught with difficulties as he is haunted by figures from his past such as the escaped convict Magwitch, the eccentric Miss Havisham, and her proud, beautiful ward, Estella.

Captivating radio dramatisations of seven of Charles Dickens' most famous novels. Charles Dickens is one of the most renowned authors of all time, and this first digital volume of the dramatised canon of his work includes seven of his most popular novels.

In this Audible Exclusive performance by Matt Lucas of Great Expectations, Charles Dickens demonstrates that conscience, loyalty and empathy are virtues far more valuable than intellect, wealth and social standing. First published in Dickens’ own periodical, All the Year Round, the novel was divided into nine monthly instalments, from December 1860 to August 1861. Unsurprisingly, it was an instant success and managed to sell over 100,000 copies per week. Though written at a challenging time in Dickens’ life, when the impending breakdown of his marriage loomed over him, Great Expectations proves to be one of his most optimistic, comical and romantic novels.

Dombey and Son is vintage Dickens and explores the classic themes of betrayal, cruelty and deceit. Dombey's dysfunctional relationships are painted against a backdrop of social unrest in industrialized London, which is populated by a host of fascinating and memorable secondary characters. The complete and unabridged novel is brought spectacularly to life by veteran reader David Timson.

Orphaned at birth, Oliver Twist is born into the grimmest of 19th century English workhouses with a life of grinding poverty ahead of him. But the boy is a fighter and after being evicted from the workhouse for asking for 'more' and surviving a stint as an undertaker’s assistant, he walks many miles to London and finds a whole new life with a gang of young pickpockets led by the Artful Dodger and their guardian Fagin.

Charles Dickens' story of solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is taught the true meaning of Christmas by the three ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, has become one of the timeless classics of English literature. First published in 1843, it introduces us not only to Scrooge himself but also to the memorable characters of underpaid desk clerk Bob Cratchit and his poor family, the poorest amongst whom is the ailing and crippled Tiny Tim.

After 18 years as a political prisoner in the Bastille, the ageing Dr Manette is finally released and reunited with his daughter in England. There two very different men, Charles Darnay, an exiled French aristocrat, and Sydney Carton, a disreputable but brilliant English lawyer, become enmeshed through their love for Lucie Manette. From the tranquil lanes of London, they are all drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror and soon fall under the lethal shadow of La Guillotine.