Charles Dickens. Other lesser known books by the English writer

As everyone knows (or should) today is the charles dickens birthday, the quintessential English novelist and one of the greatest and most important in world literature. Was born February 7, 1812 at Portsmouth and some of his most famous works are David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol y Big hopes. But it also has other lesser known books that I am going to review. These are:

Charles Dickens

It was undoubtedly the most insightful performer and storyteller of his day. And he was a great and successful teacher in developing the narrative genre, which he also endowed with humor and irony, in addition to a very sharp critic to society.

Gothic dickens

He also showed interest in mysterious phenomena, dramatic and with its macabre point. And without a doubt his best known work is a ghost story. So to start this selection of lesser known books, this title goes.

To read at dusk

It contains 13 of the most famous ghost stories written by Dickens as The ghost in the bride's room, The murder trial, The signalman, Christmas ghosts, The Assassin Captain and the pact with the Devil, The visit of the testator o The haunted house, among others.

Traveler Dickens

Italy prints

It was the result of almost a year of travel in Italy in 1844. Dickens purported to show not only a set of history and topographical notes, but a vibrant cool of the places visited.

Notes on America

In 1842 Charles Dickens and his wife embarked on the Britannia to know America. The trip, of six months, led them to Boston, New York y Washington, among other cities.

The writer made a detailed account showing a society in full development of its industrial, judicial and health structures, and pointing to the future hegemony of the country. Thus, this description is generous when it highlights aspects in which it excels compared to the England of its time. But also criticize contrary realities to progress or unjust, such as slavery.

A sample:

BOSTON

All public institutions in the United States are characterized by their great courtesy. Most of ours could be subject to considerable improvement in this regard, but it is above all the Customs House that should take a greater example to become less annoying and hostile to foreigners. Although the servile greed of French officers is already despicable, our men display a moody and impolite lack of education, unpleasant to all who come to them, unworthy of the nation that puts these irascible mutts on their own. doors.
Upon my arrival in the United States, I was struck by the contrast this posed with their customs and with the care, politeness, and good humor of those officials on duty.

Dickens manners

Mrs. Lirriper

It was hugely successful. Dickens created this character for your magazine All the Year Round. Mrs. Lirriper, when her husband dies full of debts, opens A Hostel at 81 Norfolk Street, London, to pay off his creditors and start a new life. And there they parade a long gallery of genuinely dickensian charactersFrom the wise doctor Goliath to the doctor Bernard, who helps the most desperate to kill themselves at luxurious dinners.

Historical dickens

Barnaby rudge

Typically rated as one of the two historical novels written by Dickens, it is above all a dark melodrama with crime and mystery. It takes place between 1775 and 1780, date of the Gordon riots, described in the work. It contains two of Dickens's favorite themes: the private crime and public violence.

So we have a Part where the claim is raised murder of Reuben Haredale, the dark plot that unites the aristocrats Haredale and Chester, eternal enemies, the interrupted and unsecured romances or the mysterious character who haunts the happiness of the Barnaby family.

And the second continue with the Gordon's riots, revolt promoted by Lord Gordon against the British Catholics, which involves the crowd and the different characters, from whom it brings out the noblest and most ruthless sentiments.

Beginner Dickens

The Mudfog Papers

The texts collected in this volume (also referred to other matters of interest, in addition to the Society of the peculiar and fictional Mudfog town) were originally published in the magazine Bentley's Miscellany between 1837 and 1939. It was a crucial time in Dickens's personal and professional life, who still signed under the pseudonym Boz, and was its editor. In it, the writer stopped being a beginning author and began to enjoy recognition and success. These texts they were published as a book in 1880, ten years after his death.