Four Novels

Charles Dickens

Description

In A Tale of Two Cities, French aristocrat Darnay and English lawyer Carton compete in their love for Darnay’s wife Lucie against the menacing backdrop of the French Revolution and the shadow of the guillotine. David Copperfield draws on Dickens's life to provide a vivid story mixed with comedy and sorrow. Born into poverty, young David Copperfield overcomes a cruel stepfather and frequent tragedies to enjoy success as an author. In Great Expectations, Dickens, creates a dark tale of suspense and satire around young orphan Pip, who longs for the life of a gentleman, and through a series of coincidences, a secret benefactor makes it possible for him to travel to London and chase his dreams. Dickens was a critic of the social stratification and poverty that was prevalent in Victorian society. Hard Times criticizes utilitarianism as it tells the story of a man and his children as they struggle with class conflict, and the horrible working conditions in Victorian factories.
A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Hard Times

Sujets

• Orphan
• Social criticism
• Charles Dickens
• Révolution
• London
• France

Informations

• Publié par: West Margin Press
• Date de parution: 15 mars 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780882408750
• Langue: English

Extrait

Table Of Contents Cover Copyrights A Tale of Two Cities Chapter I The Period Chapter II The Mail Chapter III The Night Shadows Chapter IV The Preparation Chapter V The Wine-shop Chapter VI The Shoemaker Chapter I Five Years Later Chapter II A Sight Chapter III A Disappointment Chapter IV Congratulatory Chapter V The Jackal Chapter VI Hundreds of People Chapter VII Monseigneur in Town Chapter VIII Monseigneur in the Country Chapter IX The Gorgon s Head Chapter X Two Promises Chapter XI A Companion Picture Chapter XII The Fellow of Delicacy Chapter XIII The Fellow of No Delicacy Chapter XIV The Honest Tradesman Chapter XV Knitting Chapter XVI Still Knitting Chapter XVII One Night Chapter XVIII Nine Days Chapter XIX An Opinion Chapter XX A Plea Chapter XXI Echoing Footsteps Chapter XXII The Sea Still Rises Chapter XXIII Fire Rises Chapter XXIV Drawn to the Loadstone Rock Chapter I In Secret Chapter II The Grindstone Chapter III The Shadow Chapter IV Calm in Storm Chapter V The Wood-Sawyer Chapter VI Triumph Chapter VII A Knock at the Door Chapter VIII A Hand at Cards Chapter IX The Game Made Chapter X The Substance of the Shadow Chapter XI Dusk Chapter XII Darkness Chapter XIII Fifty-two Chapter XIV The Knitting Done Chapter XV The Footsteps Die Out For Ever PREFACES CHAPTER 1 I AM BORN CHAPTER 2 I OBSERVE CHAPTER 3 I HAVE A CHANGE CHAPTER 4 I FALL INTO DISGRACE CHAPTER 5 I AM SENT AWAY FROM HOME CHAPTER 6 I ENLARGE MY CIRCLE OF ACQUAINTANCE CHAPTER 7 MY FIRST HALF AT SALEM HOUSE CHAPTER 8 MY HOLIDAYS. ESPECIALLY ONE HAPPY AFTERNOON CHAPTER 9 I HAVE A MEMORABLE BIRTHDAY CHAPTER 10 I BECOME NEGLECTED, AND AM PROVIDED FOR CHAPTER 11 I BEGIN LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT, AND DON T LIKE IT CHAPTER 12 LIKING LIFE ON MY OWN ACCOUNT NO BETTER, I FORM A GREAT RESOLUTION CHAPTER 13 THE SEQUEL OF MY RESOLUTION CHAPTER 14 MY AUNT MAKES UP HER MIND ABOUT ME CHAPTER 15 I MAKE ANOTHER BEGINNING CHAPTER 16 I AM A NEW BOY IN MORE SENSES THAN ONE CHAPTER 17 SOMEBODY TURNS UP CHAPTER 18 A RETROSPECT CHAPTER 19 I LOOK ABOUT ME, AND MAKE A DISCOVERY CHAPTER 20 STEERFORTH S HOME CHAPTER 21 LITTLE EM LY CHAPTER 22 SOME OLD SCENES, AND SOME NEW PEOPLE CHAPTER 23 I CORROBORATE Mr. DICK, AND CHOOSE A PROFESSION CHAPTER 24 MY FIRST DISSIPATION CHAPTER 25 GOOD AND BAD ANGELS CHAPTER 26 I FALL INTO CAPTIVITY CHAPTER 27 TOMMY TRADDLES CHAPTER 28 Mr. MICAWBER S GAUNTLET CHAPTER 29 I VISIT STEERFORTH AT HIS HOME, AGAIN CHAPTER 30 A LOSS CHAPTER 31 A GREATER LOSS CHAPTER 32 THE BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY CHAPTER 33 BLISSFUL CHAPTER 34 MY AUNT ASTONISHES ME CHAPTER 35 DEPRESSION CHAPTER 36 ENTHUSIASM CHAPTER 37 A LITTLE COLD WATER CHAPTER 38 A DISSOLUTION OF PARTNERSHIP CHAPTER 39 WICKFIELD AND HEEP CHAPTER 40 THE WANDERER CHAPTER 41 DORA S AUNTS CHAPTER 42 MISCHIEF CHAPTER 43 ANOTHER RETROSPECT CHAPTER 44 OUR HOUSEKEEPING CHAPTER 45 MR. DICK FULFILLS MY AUNT S PREDICTIONS CHAPTER 46 INTELLIGENCE CHAPTER 47 MARTHA CHAPTER 48 DOMESTIC CHAPTER 49 I AM INVOLVED IN MYSTERY CHAPTER 50 Mr. PEGGOTTY S DREAM COMES TRUE CHAPTER 51 THE BEGINNING OF A LONGER JOURNEY CHAPTER 52 I ASSIST AT AN EXPLOSION CHAPTER 53 ANOTHER RETROSPECT CHAPTER 54 Mr. MICAWBER S TRANSACTIONS CHAPTER 55 TEMPEST CHAPTER 56 THE NEW WOUND, AND THE OLD CHAPTER 57 THE EMIGRANTS CHAPTER 58 ABSENCE CHAPTER 59 RETURN CHAPTER 60 AGNES CHAPTER 61 I AM SHOWN TWO INTERESTING PENITENTS CHAPTER 62 A LIGHT SHINES ON MY WAY CHAPTER 63 A VISITOR CHAPTER 64 A LAST RETROSPECT Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 CHAPTER I THE ONE THING NEEDFUL CHAPTER II MURDERING THE INNOCENTS CHAPTER III A LOOPHOLE CHAPTER IV MR. BOUNDERBY CHAPTER V THE KEYNOTE CHAPTER VI SLEARY S HORSEMANSHIP CHAPTER VII MRS. SPARSIT CHAPTER VIII NEVER WONDER CHAPTER IX SISSY S PROGRESS CHAPTER X STEPHEN BLACKPOOL CHAPTER XI NO WAY OUT CHAPTER XII THE OLD WOMAN CHAPTER XIII RACHAEL CHAPTER XIV THE GREAT MANUFACTURER CHAPTER XV FATHER AND DAUGHTER CHAPTER XVI HUSBAND AND WIFE CHAPTER I EFFECTS IN THE BANK CHAPTER II MR. JAMES HARTHOUSE CHAPTER III THE WHELP CHAPTER IV MEN AND BROTHERS CHAPTER V MEN AND MASTERS CHAPTER VI FADING AWAY CHAPTER VII GUNPOWDER CHAPTER VIII EXPLOSION CHAPTER IX HEARING THE LAST OF IT CHAPTER X MRS. SPARSIT S STAIRCASE CHAPTER XI LOWER AND LOWER CHAPTER XII DOWN CHAPTER I ANOTHER THING NEEDFUL CHAPTER II VERY RIDICULOUS CHAPTER III VERY DECIDED CHAPTER IV LOST CHAPTER V FOUND CHAPTER VI THE STARLIGHT CHAPTER VII WHELP-HUNTING CHAPTER VIII PHILOSOPHICAL CHAPTER IX FINAL
CHARLES DICKENS FOUR NOVELS: GREAT EXPECTATIONS, DAVID COPPERFIELD, A TALE OF TWO CITIES, AND HARD TIMES
All new material copyright 2011 Graphic Arts Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher.
Graphic Arts Books
P.O. Box 56118
Portland, OR 97238-6118
Cover art: Darren Hendley istock
Cover design: Vicki Knapton
ISBN - 13:9780882408750
A Tale of Two Cities
Book the First - Recalled to Life
Chapter I The Period
Chapter II The Mail
Chapter III The Night Shadows
Chapter IV The Preparation
Chapter V The Wine-shop
Chapter VI The Shoemaker
Chapter I The Period
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.
It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-lane brood.
France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous.
In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow- tradesman whom he stopped in his character of the Captain, gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mall was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, in consequence of the failure of his ammu