From the Publisher: Oliver Twist is a classic tale of a boy of unknown parentage born in a workhouse and brought up under the cruel conditions to which pauper children were exposed in the Victorian England. With this novel, Dickens did not merely write a topical satire on the workhouse system and the role of the 1834 New Poor Law in fostering criminality. He created a moral fable about the survival of good, a romance, and a gripping story in which...

"A literary walking tour of New York City as seen through the eyes of American and British writers. It's no wonder that New York has always been a magnet city for writers. Manhattan is one of the most walkable cities in the world. While many novelists, poets, and essayists have enjoyed long walks in New York, not all of them have had favorable impressions. Addressing an endlessly appealing subject, Walking New York is a study of twelve American writers...

A comprehensive research and study guide for several novels by Charles Dickens, including plot summaries, thematic analyses, lists of characters, and critical views.

Provides in-depth analysis of the literary work Bleak House, as well as its importance and critical reception. Includes a chronology of the life and works of the author.

"Set in Coketown, the fictitious English mill-town modeled after Preston, Hard Times follows the stories of Thomas Gradgrind, a wealthy mill owner, his family, and the poor mill workers in the town. The storylines of Gradgrind's children, Louisa, Tom, and Sissy, run parallel to the troubles of the hard workers struggling to survive in a time of severe inequality. This Norton Critical Edition is based on the 1854 first edition, with new edits made...

Created by Harvard students for students everywhere, each title in the 'Sparknotes' series contains complete plot summary and analysis, key facts about the work, an analysis of the major characters, suggested essay topics, themes, motifs, and symbols, and an explanation of important quotations.

"Integrating narrative theory, gothic theory, and disability studies with analyses of works by Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Wilkie Collins, Emily Brontë, and Bram Stoker, this study illustrates the significance and impact of the multi-narrator structure in Victorian novels"--

"Nineteenth-century Britons treasured objects of daily life that had once belonged to their dead. The love of these keepsakes, which included hair, teeth, and other remains, speaks of an intimacy with the body and death, a way of understanding absence through its materials, which is less widely felt today. Deborah Lutz analyzes relic culture as an affirmation that objects held memories and told stories. These practices show a belief in keeping death...