1. [Introduction] [vii]
  2. [Sketches by Boz] [1]
  3. [Pickwick Papers] [13]
  4. [Nicholas Nickleby] [26]
  5. [Oliver Twist] [38]
  6. [Old Curiosity Shop] [50]
  7. [Barnaby Rudge] [65]
  8. [American Notes] [76]
  9. [Pictures from Italy] [87]
  10. [Martin Chuzzlewit] [90]
  11. [Christmas Books] [103]
  12. [Dombey and Son] [114]
  13. [David Copperfield] [129]
  14. [Christmas Stories] [140]
  15. [Bleak House] [148]
  16. [Child’s History of England] [160]
  17. [Hard Times] [169]
  18. [Little Dorrit] [178]
  19. [A Tale of Two Cities] [188]
  20. [Great Expectations] [197]
  21. [Our Mutual Friend] [207]
  22. [Edwin Drood] [218]
  23. [Master Humphrey’s Clock] [229]
  24. [Reprinted Pieces] [239]

ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

These papers were originally published as prefaces to the separate books of Dickens in one of the most extensive of those cheap libraries of the classics which are one of the real improvements of recent times. Thus they were harmless, being diluted by, or rather drowned in Dickens. My scrap of theory was a mere dry biscuit to be taken with the grand tawny port of great English comedy; and by most people it was not taken at all—like the biscuit. Nevertheless the essays were not in intention so aimless as they appear in fact. I had a general notion of what needed saying about Dickens to the new generation, though probably I did not say it. I will make another attempt to do so in this prologue, and, possibly fail again.