Barnes and noble classics collection series#

In that year he began a series of exhausting public readings his health gradually declined. A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations(1860-1) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-5) complete his major works.ĭickens’s marriage to Catherine Hoggarth produced ten children but ended in separation in 1858. Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4) was less so, but Dickens followed it with his unforgettable, A Christmas Carol (1843), Bleak House (1852-3), Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit (1855-7)reveal his deepening concern for the injustices of British Society. Oliver Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-9) and The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41) were huge successes. It has been estimated that one out of every ten persons in Victorian England was a Dickens reader. With Pickwick Papers (1836-7) he achieved immediate fame in a few years he was easily the post popular and respected writer of his time. When the family fortunes improved, Charles went back to school, after which he became an office boy, a freelance reporter and finally an author. This three-month separation caused Charles much pain his experiences as a child alone in a huge city–cold, isolated with barely enough to eat–haunted him for the rest of his life. When he was condemned the Marshela Prison for unpaid debts, he unwisely agreed that Charles should stay in lodgings and continue working while the rest of the family joined him in jail. His father John Dickens, was a warmhearted but improvident man. At age eleven, Dickens was taken out of school and sent to work in London backing warehouse, where his job was to paste labels on bottles for six shillings a week.

The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. With an Introduction and Notes by Gillen D'Arcy WoodĬharles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812.

One of Dickens’s most exciting novels, A Tale of Two Cities is a stirring classic of love, revenge, and resurrection. At the center is the novel’s hero, Sydney Carton, a lazy, alcoholic attorney who, inspired by a woman, makes the supreme sacrifice on the bloodstained streets of Paris. From the storming of the Bastille to the relentless drop of the guillotine, Dickens vividly captures the terror and upheaval of that tumultuous period. With these famous words, Charles Dickens plunges the reader into one of history’s most explosive eras the French Revolution. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” A Tale of Two Cities quickly establishes itself with one of literature's most legendary opening lines: If you are looking for the other collections, check out the Guide to collecting Barnes & Noble Collectible Editions.

The books in this series were also later reprinted with different cover designs (the B&N Illustrated Children’s Classics series), and the number of available volumes was expanded. Completist collectors should note that a couple of the volumes have slightly different colored cover designs depending on which printing they are, as noted below (as a general rule of thumb, the earlier printings have less gilt, and feature the title in a contrasting spot of color, while later printings do not have the spot highlight). The books in this series are no longer in print and are not super common, but they are a fun and achievable challenge to chase down if you’re interested in building a set. There are 18 titles in the series, and an additional 9 cover variants. All the silhouette designs are printed directly onto playful (bonded) leather hues, and feature embossed foil finishes, pretty end papers and silver edged pages.

Barnes and noble classics collection