Penguin Books Australia

Hard Times is a searing, passionate criticism of a world that values material success and rationalism above the human heart.

Mr Thomas Gradgrind, headmaster of Coketown school and model of Utilitarian virtue, feeds his pupils and family with 'nothing but facts' and bans fancy and wonder from young minds. Showing how his neglect of feelings leads to both personal misery and strife in wider society...

'But what added most to the grotesque expression of his face, was a ghastly smile, which, appearing to be the mere result of habit and to have no connexion with any mirthful or complacent feeling, constantly revealed the few discoloured fangs that were yet scattered in his mouth, and gave him the aspect of a panting dog'

Based in part on the author's own life, David Copperfield is the epic story of a young man's journey of self-discovery - from an unhappy and impoverished childhood to his vocation as a successful novelist. Among the memorable cast of characters he encounters along the way are his brutal stepfather, Mr Murdstone; bubbly Nurse Peggotty; his brilliant, but unworthy schoolmate Steerforth, his eccentric...

A masterly evocation of the state and psychology of imprisonment, Little Dorrit is one of the supreme works of Dickens's maturity.

Dickens's epic, exuberant novel is one of the greatest coming-of-age stories in literature. It chronicles David Copperfield's extraordinary journey through life, as he encounters villains, saviours, eccentrics and grotesques, including the wicked Mr Murdstone, stout-hearted Peggotty, formidable Betsy Trotwood, impecunious Micawber and odious Uriah Heep.

Dickens's great Bildungsroman (based, in part...

'I plainly see to what foul uses all this money will be put . . . showing perjury, hatred, and lies among near kindred, where there should be nothing but love'

Old Martin Chuzzlewit, in despair at a family more interested in his wealth than his wellbeing, drives out his grandson and namesake. While the younger Martin leaves to make his own way in the world, love of money drives the hypocritical...

Dark, mysterious and mordantly funny, Oliver Twist features some of the most memorably drawn villains in all of fiction - the treacherous gangmaster Fagin, the menacing thug Bill Sikes, the Artful Dodger and their den of thieves in the grimy London backstreets. Dicken's novel is both an angry indictment of poverty, and an adventure filled with an air of threat and pervasive evil.

Great Expectations , Dickens's funny, frightening and tender portrayal of the orphan Pip's journey of self-discovery, is one of his best-loved works. Showing how a young man's life is transformed by a mysterious series of events - an encounter with an escaped prisoner; a visit to a black-hearted old woman and a beautiful girl; a fortune from a secret donor - Dickens's late novel is a masterpiece of...

Described by Dickens as 'the best story I have written', A Tale of Two Cities interweaves thrilling historical drama with heartbreaking personal tragedy.

It vividly depicts a revolutionary Paris running red with blood, and a London where the poor starve. In the midst of the chaos two men - an exiled French aristocrat and a dissolute English lawyer - are both redeemed and condemned by their love for...

One of the great novelist's most popular works, Oliver Twists is also the purest distillation of Dickens's genius. This tale of the orphan who is reared in a workhouse and runs away to London is a novel of social protest, a morality tale, and a detective story. Oliver Twist presents some of the most sinister characters in Dickens-the master thief Fagin; the leering Artful dodger; the murderer Bill...

The storming of the Bastille . . . the death carts with their doomed human cargo . . . the swift drop of the guillotine blade-this is the French Revolution that Charles Dickens vividly captures in his famous work A Tale of Two Cities . With dramatic eloquence, he brings to life a time of terror and treason, a starving people rising in frenzy and hate to overthrow a corrupt and decadent regime.

Dicken's most beloved story, A Christmas Carol , is as much a part of Christmas as mistletoe and carolers. This heartwarming tale continues to stir in us the same feelings of repentance, forgiveness, and love that transformed Ebenezer Scrooge

2012 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of one of our greatest and most important novelists, Charles Dickens. To celebrate we're publishing eight of his best and most well-loved novels in this exclusive, must-have boxed set of our authoritative Penguin Classics editions.

2012 is the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of one of our greatest and most important novelists, Charles Dickens. To celebrate we're publishing six of his works in this exclusive and sumptuous boxed set of lavish, clothbound editions, designed by Penguin's own award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith.

Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning...

Part of Penguin's beautiful hardback Clothbound Classics series, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith, these delectable and collectible editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design.