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Charles Dickens

On London

The short story is often viewed as an inferior relation to the Novel. But it is an art in itself. To take a story and distil its essence into fewer pages while keeping character and plot rounded and driven is not an easy task. Many try and many fail. In this series we look at short stories from many of our most accomplished writers. Miniature masterpieces with a lot to say. In this volume we examine some of the stories Charles Dickens wrote about London, A City of Empire and ambition with a dark underside. Dickens is a name that dominates the landscape of English novelists. His works are masterpieces and he is held everywhere in the highest regard. In his fairly short life of 58 years he accomplished an extraordinary number of classic novels, especially in light of his humble and poor beginnings. Here in this collection of stories his hand and mind are everywhere within their short length proving once again that Dickens could master almost any form of writing.
112 printed pages
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Quotes

  • Ashutosh Pandeyhas quotedlast year
    fancy fair in high life,
  • Светлана Резвяковаhas quoted8 years ago
    Let us turn now, to another portion of the London population, whose recreations present about as strong a contrast as can well be conceived, we mean the Sunday pleasurers; and let us beg our readers to imagine themselves stationed by our side in some well-known rural 'Tea-gardens.'
    The heat is intense this afternoon, and the people, of whom there are additional parties arriving every moment, look as warm as the tables which have been recently painted, and have the appearance of being red-hot. What a dust and noise! Men and women, boys and girls, sweethearts and married people, babies in arms, and children in chaises, pipes and shrimps, cigars and periwinkles, tea and tobacco. Gentlemen, in alarming waistcoats, and steel watch- guards, promenading about, three abreast, with surprising dignity (or as the gentleman in the next box facetiously observes, 'cutting it uncommon fat!') ladies, with great, long, white pocket- handkerchiefs like small table-cloths, in their hands, chasing one another on the grass in the most playful and interesting manner, with the view of attracting the attention of the aforesaid gentlemen, husbands in perspective ordering bottles of ginger-beer for the objects of their affections, with a lavish disregard of expense; and the said objects washing down huge quantities of 'shrimps' and 'winkles,' with an equal disregard of their own bodily health and subsequent comfort, boys, with great silk hats just balanced on the top of their heads, smoking cigars, and trying to look as if they liked them, gentlemen in pink shirts and blue waistcoats, occasionally upsetting either themselves, or somebody else, with their own canes.

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