Charles Dickens, página 29 de 132

Olivers mother dies when he is born and he is brought up in a workhouse. His first years are cold and lonelyand then he runs away to London. But he falls into the hands of Fagin and the terrifying Bill Sykes. They try to turn Oliver into a criminal. Will he escape to find a better life?

Quattro racconti per l'infanzia di un grande maestro dell'Ottocento. La sospensione dell'incredulita e il presupposto di un racconto introduttivo uscito dalla penna di un bambino di otto anni. Una lisca magica che, per una sola volta puo esaudire qualunque desiderio viene donata da una Fata a una piccola Principessa. Un piccolo Capitano coraggioso di nome Boldheart combatte la sua guerra personale contro le angherie del Maestro di Grammatica Latina. Distinti ed educati piccoli signori accudiscono i grandi come fossero i loro bambini, in un paese incantato dove i grandi non devono mai far tardi, devono sempre ubbidire e per punizione sono messi nell'angolino...

Oliver es un niño huérfano que pasa sus primeros años en el orfanato de la señora Mann. Al igual que el resto de los niños en el orfanato, Oliver sufre hambre continuamente. Los niños deciden entonces jugar a quien de ellos pedira un plato mas de comida y Oliver resulta ser el elegido. En la cena de esa noche, despues de su racion normal, se dirige al director del orfanato y le pide mas comida. Debido a este episodio, es tachado de problematico por el Sr. Bumble, el bedel y el director, quien lo ofrece como aprendiz a cualquiera que lo quiera contratar. Asi, Oliver se convierte en aprendiz del enterrador Sowerberry; sin embargo, se pelea con un empleado del enterrador y decide escapar a Londres.En las afueras de la ciudad, cansado y hambriento, conoce a Jack Dawkins (El Pillastre), quien le ofrece un lugar donde hospedarse en Londres. Lleno de inocencia, Oliver se ve inmerso en el mundo del hampa londinense y se encuentra en medio de una banda de chicos carteristas, dirigida por el malvado Fagin. Londres es descrito como una sucesion de laberinticas calles y callejones, patios por los que Oliver es arrastrado, y en los que percibe la pobreza, la suciedad o la delincuencia. En esa ciudad, conoce a una mujer llamada Nancy, quien se gana la vida en la calle.

Or, ce que je veux, ce sont des faits. Enseignez des faits a ces garçons et a ces filles, rien que des faits. Les faits sont la seule chose dont on ait besoin ici-bas. Ne plantez pas autre chose et deracinez-moi tout le reste. Ce nest quau moyen des faits quon forme lesprit dun animal qui raisonne: le reste ne lui servira jamais de rien. Cest dapres ce principe que jeleve mes propres enfants, et cest dapres ce principe que jeleve les enfants que voila. Attachez-vous aux faits, monsieur!

Doctor Marigold, named for the man who delivered him, is a "cheap-jack" who hawks sundries from a traveling cart he inhabits with his wife and his daughter Sophy. The mother beats Sophy, but Marigold, feeling powerless, does nothing to stop her.

CHAPTER ONEINTRODUCTORY, CONCERNING THE PEDIGREE OF THECHUZZLEWIT FAMILYAs no lady or gentleman, with any claims to polite breeding, can possibly sympathize with the Chuzzlewit Family without being first assured of the extreme antiquity of the race, it is a great satisfaction to know that it undoubtedly descended in a direct line from Adam and Eve; and was, in the very earliest times, closely connected with the agricultural interest. If it should ever be urged by grudging and malicious persons, that a Chuzzlewit, in any period of the family history, displayed an overweening amount of family pride, surely the weakness will be considered not only pardonable but laudable, when the immense superiority of the house to the rest of mankind, inrespect of this its ancient origin, is taken into account.It is remarkable that as there was, in the oldest family of which we have any record, a murderer and a vagabond, so we never fail to meet, in the records of all old families, with innumerable repetitions of the same phase of character.Indeed, it may be laid down as a general principle, that the more extended the ancestry, the greater the amount of violence and vagabondism; for in ancient days those two amusements, combining a wholesome excitement with a promising means of repairing shattered fortunes, were at once the ennobling pursuit and the healthful recreation of the Quality of this land.Consequently, it is a source of inexpressible comfort and happiness to find, that in various periods of our history, the Chuzzlewits were actively connected with divers slaughterous conspiracies and bloody frays. It is further recorded of them, that being clad from head to heel in steel of proof, they did on many occasions lead their leather-jerkined soldiers to the death with invincible courage, and afterwards return home gracefully to their relations and friends.There can be no doubt that at least one Chuzzlewit came over with William the Conqueror. It does not appear that this illustrious ancestor came over that monarch, to employ the vulgar phrase, at any subsequent period; inasmuch as the Family do not seem to have been ever greatly distinguished by the possession of landed estate. And it is well known that for the bestowal of that kind of property upon his favourites, the liberality and gratitude of the Norman were as remarkable as those virtues are usually found to be in great men when they give away what belongs to other people

When Nicholas Nickleby is left penniless after his fathers death, he appeals to his wealthy uncle to help him find work and to protect his mother and sister. But Ralph Nickleby proves both hard-hearted and unscrupulous, and Nicholas finds himself forced to make his own way in the world. His adventures gave Dickens the opportunity to portray an extraordinary gallery of rogues and eccentrics: Wackford Squeers, the tyrannical headmaster of Dotheboys Hall, a school for unwanted boys; the slow-witted orphan Smike, rescued by Nicholas; and the gloriously theatrical Mr and Mrs Crummles and their daughter, the infant phenonenon. Like many of Dickenss novels, Nicholas Nickleby is characterised by his outrage at cruelty and social injustice, but it is also a flamboyantly exuberant work, revealing his comic genius at its most unerring.

Set against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, "Barnaby Rudge" is a story of mystery and suspense which begins with an unsolved double murder and goes on to involve conspiracy, blackmail, abduction and retribution. Through the course of the novel fathers and sons become opposed, apprentices plot against their masters and Protestants clash with Catholics on the streets. And, as London erupts into riot, Barnaby Rudge himself struggles to escape the curse of his own past. With its dramatic descriptions of public violence and private horror, its strange secrets and ghostly doublings, Barnaby Rudge is a powerful, disturbing blend of historical realism and Gothic melodrama.

Few first novels have created as much popular excitement as "The Pickwick Papers"-a comic masterpiece that catapulted its 24-year-old author to immediate fame. Readers were captivated by the adventures of the poet Snodgrass, the lover Tupman, the sportsman Winkle &, above all, by that quintessentially English Quixote, Mr Pickwick, & his cockney Sancho Panza, Sam Weller. From the hallowed turf of Dingley Dell Cricket Club to the unholy fracas of the Eatanswill election, via the Fleet debtors prison, characters & incidents sprang to life from Dickenss pen, to form an enduringly popular work of ebullient humour & literary invention.

The greed of his family has led wealthy old Martin Chuzzlewit to become suspicious and misanthropic, leaving his grandson and namesake to make his own way in the world. And so young Martin sets out from the Wiltshire home of his supposed champion, the scheming architect Pecksniff, to seek his fortune in America. In depicting Martins journey - an experience that teaches him to question his inherited self-interest and egotism - Dickens created many vividly realized figures: the brutish lout Jonas Chuzzlewit, plotting to gain the family fortune; Martins optimistic manservant, Mark Tapley; gentle Tom Pinch; and the drunken and corrupt private nurse, Mrs Gamp. With its portrayal of greed, blackmail and murder, and its searing satire on America Dickenss novel is a powerful and blackly comic story of hypocrisy and redemption.

I REMARKED in the original Preface to this Book, that I did not find it easy to get sufficiently far away from it, in the first sensations of having finished it, to refer to it with the composure which this formal heading would seem to require. My interest in it was so recent and strong, and my mind was so divided between pleasure and regretpleasure in the achievement of a long design, regret in the separation from many companionsthat I was in danger of wearying the reader with personal confidences and private emotions.Besides which, all that I could have said of the Story to any purpose, I had endeavoured to say in it.It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years imaginative task; or how an Author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him for ever. Yet, I had nothing else to tell; unless, indeed, I were to confess (which might be of less moment still), that no one can ever believe this Narrative, in the reading, more than I believed it in the writing.So true are these avowals at the present day, that I can now only take the reader into one confidence more. Of all my books, I like this the best. It will be easily believed that I am a fond parent to every child of my fancy, and that no one can ever love that family as dearly as I love them. But, like many fond parents, I have in my heart of hearts a favourite child. And his name isDAVID COPPERFIELD.

Um Cântico de Natal tem como protagonista Ebenezer Scrooge, um pão-duro, proprietário de uma casa de contabilidade e empregador do pobre Bob Cratchit, seu escriturário. Scrooge evita fazer quaisquer

Master Humphreys Clock was the title of the weekly periodical in which The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge were originally published. Begun in 1840, the narrative comprises a series of short stories, with the two novels following. In the periodical, Master Humphrey starts a club in which the members read to one another. One of the members of this club is Mr. Pickwick, of The Pickwick Papers. A mirror club, run by Sam Weller, another character from The Pickwick Papers, meets in Mr Humphreys kitchen and is called Mr Wellers Watch.