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HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.There is probably a smell of roasted chestnuts and other good comfortable things all the time, for we are telling Winter Stories…This heart-warming collection of festive short stories and novellas perfectly captures the spirit of Christmas. Focused on the journeys taken through life and the inherent goodness of mankind, these tales explore the true meaning of Christmas and revel in the joyful season of goodwill. Imbued with a moral message, Dickens’s writing gives a voice to the plight of working-class families during a period of social and political change in Victorian England.With such tales as ‘The Chimes’, ‘The Cricket on the Hearth’ and ‘What Christmas Is, As We Grow Older’, this is a beautiful collection for Dickens fans, and a wonderful companion for all those who cherish ‘A Christmas Carol’.

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HarperCollins is proud to present a range of best-loved, essential classics.'I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,' said the Spirit. 'Look upon me!'A celebration of Christmas, a tale of redemption and a critique on Victorian society, Dickens' atmospheric novella follows the miserly, penny-pinching Ebenezer Scrooge who views Christmas as 'humbug'. It is only through a series of eerie, life-changing visits from the ghost of his deceased business partner Marley and the spirits of Christmas past, present and future that he begins to see the error of his ways. With heart-rending characters, rich imagery and evocative language, the message of A Christmas Carol remains as significant today as when it was first published.

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HarperCollins is proud to present a range of best-loved, essential classics.'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…'Set before and during the French Revolution in the cities of Paris and London, A Tale of Two Cities tells the story of Dr Manette's release from imprisonment in the Bastille and his reunion with daughter, Lucie. A French aristocrat Darnay and English lawyer Carton compete in their love for Lucie and the ensuing tale plays out against the menacing backdrop of the French Revolution and the shadow of the guillotine.

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The Chimes, is a novella written by Charles Dickens and first published in 1844, one year after A Christmas Carol. It is the second in his series of «„Christmas books,“» five novellas with strong social and moral messages that he published during the 1840s. In addition to A Christmas Carol and The Chimes, the Christmas books include The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (1848). 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 a nostalgia, all of whom make Trotty, Meg and Richard feel they hardly have a right to exist, let alone marry… The Christmas stories of the famous authors: Gilbert Keith Chesterton – A Christmas Carol, Lucy Maud Montgomery – A Christmas Inspiration, A Christmas Mistake, Christmas at Red Butte, Lyman Frank Baum -A Kidnapped Santa Claus, Mark Twain – A Letter from Santa Claus, Louisa May Alcott – A Merry Christmas, Leo Tolstoy – A Russian Christmas Party, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – Christmas Bells, Nikolai Gogol – Christmas Eve, William Dean Howells – Christmas Everyday, Joseph Rudyard Kipling – Christmas in India, Lyman Frank Baum – Little Bun Rabbit, Elizabeth Harrison – Little Gretchen and the Wooden Shoe, John Milton – On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity, Charles Dickens – The Chimes, Nathaniel Hawthorne -The Christmas Banquet, Hans Christian Andersen – The Fir Tree, Selma Lagerlöf – The Holy Night, Hans Christian Andersen – The Little Match Girl, Clement Moore – The Night Before Christmas, Henry van Dyke – The Other Wise Man, William Dean Howells – The Pony Engine and the Pacific Express, Beatrix Potter – The Tailor of Gloucester, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – The Three Kings, Anton Chehov – Vanka.

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A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843. This is a very kind fairy tale that evokes bright feelings and wishes. After reading it, you want to be a little kinder. The plot is uncomplicated. There lives in the world a very, very greedy old man named Scrooge. He is such a miser – he saves on everything, is constantly dissatisfied with something, tries to earn all the money in the world. On one of the pre-Christmas days, his companion named Marley appears at his house. And all would be nothing, but Marley died seven years ago. However, he wants to help the old man to rethink his life. To this idea are connected and three Spirits. And one fine morning Scrooge turns into a cheerful old man, ready to help everyone. The treatment of the poor and the ability of a selfish man to redeem himself by transforming into a more sympathetic character are the key themes of the story. There is discussion among academics as to whether this was a fully secular story, or if it is a Christian allegory. Famous works of the author Charles Dickens: The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations

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This comprehensive eBook presents the complete works or all the significant works – the Œuvre – of this famous and brilliant writer in one ebook – 24000 pages easy-to-read and easy-to-navigate: • The Woman in White • The Moonstone • No Name • The Haunted Hotel: A Mystery of Modern Venice • A House to Let (Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, and Adelaide Anne Procter) • Armadale • After Dark • The Lazy Tour of Two Idle ApprenticesCharles Dickens and • The Law and the Lady • The Frozen Deep • Stories by English Authors: England • The Queen of Hearts • Poor Miss Finch • The Dead Secret • The Black Robe • Man and Wife • No ThoroughfareCharles Dickens and • Basil • Hide and Seek • The Dead Alive • Miss or Mrs.? • Heart and Science: A Story of the Present Time • Blind Love • The Fallen Leaves • Little Novels • «I Say No» • Antonina; Or, The Fall of Rome • The Legacy of Cain • A Rogue's Life • My Lady's Money • The Two Destinies • The New Magdalen • Jezebel's Daughter • The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story • Rambles Beyond Railways; or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • My Miscellanies • The Guilty River • A Fair Penitent • My Miscellanies • The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices (Charles Dickens)

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GREAT EXPECTATIONS is Charles Dickens' thirteenth novel and his penultimate completed novel; a bildungsroman which depicts the personal growth and personal development of an orphan nicknamed Pip. It is Dickens's second novel, after David Copperfield, to be fully narrated in the first person. The novel was first published as a serial in Dickens's weekly periodical All the Year Round, from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. In October 1861, Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes. It is set among marshes in Kent, and in London, in the early to mid-1800s, and contains some of Dickens' most memorable scenes, including the opening, in a graveyard, where the young Pip is accosted by the escaped convict, Abel Magwitch. GREAT EXPECTATIONS is full of extreme imagery -poverty; prison ships and chains, and fights to the death-and has a colorful cast of characters who have entered popular culture. Dickens's themes include wealth and poverty, love and rejection, and the eventual triumph of good over evil. GREAT EXPECTATIONS is popular both with readers and literary critics, and has been translated into many languages, and adapted numerous times into various media. Upon its release, the novel received near universal acclaim. Thomas Carlyle spoke disparagingly of «all that Pip's nonsense». Later, George Bernard Shaw praised the novel, as «All of one piece and consistently truthful.» During the serial publication, Dickens was pleased with public response to GREAT EXPECTATIONS and its sales; when the plot first formed in his mind, he called it «a very fine, new and grotesque idea.» (more on www.wisehouse-classics.com)

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A TALE OF TWO CITIES (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. The novel depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution, and many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same period. It follows the lives of several characters through these events. A Tale of Two Cities was published in weekly installments from April 1859 to November 1859 in Dickens's new literary periodical titled All the Year Round. All but three of Dickens's previous novels had appeared only as monthly installments. With sales of about 200 million copies, A Tale of Two Cities is the bestselling novel in history. «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.»

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A CHRISTMAS CAROL is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London on December 1843. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim. A Christmas Carol tells the story of a bitter old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge and his transformation into a gentler, kindlier man after visitations by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. The book was written at a time when the British were examining and exploring Christmas traditions from the past as well as new customs such as Christmas cards and Christmas trees. Carol singing took a new lease on life during this time. Dickens' sources for the tale appear to be many and varied, but are, principally, the humiliating experiences of his childhood, his sympathy for the poor, and various Christmas stories and fairy tales. Dickens was not the first author to celebrate the Christmas season in literature, but it was he who superimposed his humanitarian vision of the holiday upon the public, an idea that has been termed as Dickens' «Carol Philosophy». Dickens believed the best way to reach the broadest segment of the population regarding his concerns about poverty and social injustice was to write a deeply felt Christmas story rather than polemical pamphlets and essays. Dickens' career as a best-selling author was on the wane, and the writer felt he needed to produce a tale that would prove both profitable and popular. Dickens' visit to the work-worn industrial city of Manchester was the «spark» that fired the author to produce a story about the poor, a repentant miser, and redemption that would become A Christmas Carol. The forces that inspired Dickens to create a powerful, impressive and enduring tale were the profoundly humiliating experiences of his childhood, the plight of the poor and their children during the boom decades of the 1830s and 1840s, and Washington Irving's essays on old English Christmas traditions published in his Sketch Book (1820); and fairy tales and nursery stories, as well as satirical essays and religious tracts.

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«Который час? Часы на колокольне Сент-Джайлса бьют девять. Вечер сырой и унылый, и вереницы фонарей затянуты мутью, как будто мы глядим на них сквозь слезы. Дует волглый ветер, и каждый раз, как пирожник приоткроет дверцу своей жаровни, вырывает огонь из трубы и уносит вдаль ворох искр…»

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