Books by Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens enjoyed a great deal of popularity in his own time. With many of his works first published as serialized novels, in the year listed, he struck a chord with his exploration of the human condition, of poverty and injustice, and his sharp character studies that managed to be both witty and perceptive.
1836 – Sketches by Boz
- A variety of short descriptions of London scenes and characters
- Most useful for background and to supplement your character rather than choosing a character from these sketches
1836 – The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
- Loaded with wonderful and comic characters
- The early Victorian Cockney’s ideal of the successful common man who now has leisure time
- Good Cockney dialect ‘ Sam Weller (Pickwick is a Cockney too but speaks better than Sam)
1838 – Oliver Twist
- Learning to be a criminal
- Daily life and customs of low class criminals: Fagin, Sykes, Nancy, etc.
1838 – Nicholas Nickleby
- Theatrical characters
- Daily middle class life
- Lots of young characters’ boarding school life
1840- Sketches of Young Couples
- A commentary on dating and marriage in the Victorian era.
1841 – Barnaby Rudge
- Rioters and apprentices
1841 – Old Curiosity Shop
- Daily lower middle class life
- Jarleys Waxworks
1843 – Martin Chuzzlewit
- Lots of Americans, wrong country: do not use them
1843 – A Christmas Carol (in The Christmas Books)
- A short book
- Fezziwig’s domestic ball
- Good Cockney dialect ‘ the laundress and other who steal Scrooge’s deathbed curtains
1844 – The Chimes (in The Christmas Books)
- A short New Year’s story
- Poor but honest Cockneys and rich, evil bureaucrats
1845 – The Cricket on the Hearth (in The Christmas Books)
- A short Christmas story
- Wonderful lower middle class daily life
- Poor but honest Cockneys
1846 – Dombey and Son
- Upper middle class and merchant life ‘ shipping and business
1846 – The Battle of Life (in The Christmas Books)
- A short Christmas story
1848 – The Haunted Man (in The Christmas Books)
- A short Christmas story
1849 – David Copperfield
- Home life of the Murdstones, upper middle class town people
- The boy, David, discovers London
- Home life of the Micawbers, lower middle class city people
- David’s courtship and marriage ‘ a social diagnosis
1852 – Bleak House
- Law and justice in the London courts ‘ Jo as a representative figure
- Mr. Tulkinghorn as a representative middle class Englishman
- The Dedlocks ‘ an upper class old country family and their lifestyle
1859 – A Tale of Two Cities
- Revolutionary Frenchmen, wrong period: do not use as reference material for the Dickens Fair
1859 – Great Expectations
- The life of a London gentleman, such as Pip hoped to become
- The methods and problems of a criminal lawyer like Jaggers
- The Thames and its traffic
1870 – The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished)
- Because the book is incomplete, it may not be the best source
Other Books & Stories by Charles Dickens
- 1857 – Little Dorrit
- 1859 – The Haunted House
- 1865 – Our Mutual Friend
- 1850s – Household Words
- 1854 – Hard Times
- 1851 – What Christmas Is
- 1863 – Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings
- 1860 – A Message from the Sea
“Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!”
~ Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol