This study is intended both for first-time readers of The Sound and the Fury andsince it offers new scholarship and critical argument on Faulknerfor established critics and scholars. Chapter 1 provides some general context about Faulkner's life and work in the American South and 'Yoknapatawpha County', and introduces the form and style of Faulkner's novel. Chapter 2 provides a discussion of the contexts of Southern history and Faulkner's family history. Chapter 3 is a discussion of the inf...

Following his father's death John Harmon returns to London to claim his inheritance, but he finds he is eligible only if he marries Bella Wilfur. To observe her character he assumes another identity and secures work with his father's foreman, Mr Boffin, who is also Bella's guardian. Disguise and concealment play an important role in the novel and individual identity is examined within the wider setting of London life: in the 1860s the city was aflame with spiralling financial speculation w...

Our Mutual Friend (1864-5) Dickens’ last completed novel, has been critically praised as a profound and troubled masterpiece, and yet is has received far less scholarly attention than his other major works. This volume is the first book-length study of the novel. It explores every aspect of Dickens’ sustained imaginative involvement with his age. In particular its original research into hitherto neglected sources reveals not only Dickens’ reactions to the important developments during the ...

Upon finishing Dombey and Son this morning, I thought back to the first Dickens work I ever read, which was David Copperfield, as a freshman in high school. Since then I have read many others, all with the same extensive cast of characters, side plots, etc.....Except this one....which makes me question why it is not used as an introduction to the works of Dickens in school curriculums.Dombey and Son, as a title, refers to the business which provides wealth, title, and posit...

The novel begins with Martin's dissatisfaction with his selfish and manipulative grandfather, Old Martin Chuzzlewit, who disinherits him. Martin travels to America, where he encounters various eccentric and often unscrupulous individuals. The narrative explores themes such as greed, hypocrisy, and the stark differences between American and British society.Dickens uses "The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit" as a platform to critique both American and British society, highlighting th...

**With A to Z Classics, discover or rediscover all the classics of literature.Contains Active Table of Contents (HTML)**Upon its publication in 1857, Little Dorrit immediately outsold any of Dickens’s previous books. The story of William Dorrit, imprisoned for debt in Marshalsea Prison, and his daughter and helpmate, Amy, or Little Dorrit, the novel charts the progress of the Dorrit family from poverty to riches. In his Introduction, David Gates argues that “intens...

The first ray of light which illumines the gloom, and converts into a dazzling brilliancy that obscurity in which the earlier history of the public career of the immortal Pickwick would appear to be involved, is derived from the perusal of the following entry in the Transactions of the Pickwick Club, which the editor of these papers feels the highest pleasure in laying before his readers, as a proof of the careful attention, indefatigable assiduity, and nice discrimination, with which his ...

The bibliography of Charles Dickens (1812–70) includes more than a dozen major novels, a large number of short stories (including Christmas-themed stories and ghost stories), several plays, several non-fiction books, and individual essays and articles. Dickens's novels were serialised initially in weekly or monthly magazines, then reprinted in standard book formats. Book One Hard Times – For These Times (commonly known as Hard Times) is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published i...

Charles Dickens's puzzling—and unfinished—final novelThe Mystery of Edwin Drood has enthralled readers since its 1st publication in 1870. Left unfinished at the time of Dickens's death, the ending of the book remains a mystery. The story follows Edwin Drood, a young man who has promised to wed the beautiful Rosa Bud when he comes of age. But the lovely Rosa has caught the eyes of other men—including Edwin's uncle Jasper. On a stormy Christmas Eve, Edwin rec...

On New Year's Eve, Trotty, a poor elderly "ticket-porter" or casual messenger, is filled with gloom at the reports of crime and immorality in the newspapers, and wonders whether the working classes are simply wicked by nature. His daughter Meg and her long-time fiancé Richard arrive and announce their decision to marry next day. Trotty hides his misgivings, but their happiness is dispelled by an encounter with the pompous Alderman Cute, plus a political economist and a young gentleman with...

In tribute to the bicentennial of the birth of Charles Dickens, Delphi Classics is pleased to introduce Dickensiana, a first of its kind e-compilation of period accounts of Dickens’s life and works, rare 19th and early 20th century books and articles about Dickens and Dickensian locales, reminiscences by family, friends and colleagues, tribute poems, parodies, satires and sequels based on his works and much more, spiced with an abundance of vintage images. Delphi looks forward to publishin...

Dickens's England was a time of unprecedented energy and change which laid the foundations of our own modern society. There was a new world coming into being: new towns, new machines, new and revolutionary ideas, new songs and dances, music-halls and popular novels, as well as new wealth for the smug middle classes. For others, however, there was poverty, struggle and hard labour. Dickens's characters with whom we are so familiar - orphan Oliver and cunning Fagin,...