- published: 06 Apr 2010
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Bleak House is a novel by Charles Dickens, published in 20 monthly instalments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is held to be one of Dickens's finest novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon. The story is told partly by the novel's heroine, Esther Summerson, and partly by an omniscient narrator. Memorable characters include the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn, the friendly, but depressive John Jarndyce, and the childish and disingenuous Harold Skimpole, as well as the likeable but imprudent Richard Carstone.
Hard Times - For These Times (commonly known as Hard Times) is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book appraises English society and is aimed at highlighting the social and economic pressures of the times.
Hard Times is unusual in several respects. It is by far the shortest of Dickens' novels, barely a quarter of the length of those written before and after it. Also, unlike all but one of his other novels, Hard Times has neither a preface, nor illustrations. Moreover, it is his only novel not to have scenes set in London. Instead the story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town, in some ways similar to Manchester, though smaller. Coketown may be partially based upon 19th-century Preston.
One of Dickens' reasons for writing Hard Times was that sales of his weekly periodical, Household Words, were low, and it was hoped its publication in instalments would boost circulation, as indeed proved to be the case. Since publication it has received a mixed response from critics, such as F.R. Leavis, George Bernard Shaw, and Thomas Macaulay, mainly focusing on Dickens's treatment of trade unions and his post-Industrial Revolution pessimism regarding the divide between Capitalist mill owners and undervalued workers during the Victorian era.
A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a novel by Charles Dickens, set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. With well over 200 million copies sold, it ranks among the most famous works in the history of fictional literature.
The novel depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution, and many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same time period. It follows the lives of several protagonists through these events. The most notable are Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Darnay is a French once-aristocrat who falls victim to the indiscriminate wrath of the revolution despite his virtuous nature, and Carton is a dissipated British barrister who endeavours to redeem his ill-spent life out of his unrequited love for Darnay's wife. The 45-chapter novel was published in 31 weekly installments in Dickens' new literary periodical titled All the Year Round. From April 1859 to November 1859, Dickens also republished the chapters as eight monthly sections in green covers. Dickens' previous novels had appeared only as monthly installments. The first weekly installment of A Tale of Two Cities ran in the first issue of All the Year Round on 30 April 1859. The last ran thirty weeks later, on 26 November.
Actors: Lasco Atkins (actor), Steve Morphew (actor), Tom Hollander (actor), Kristin Scott Thomas (actress), John Warman (actor), Joan Washington (miscellaneous crew), John Kavanagh (actor), Ralph Fiennes (director), Ralph Fiennes (actor), Stuart Matthews (actor), Ilan Eshkeri (composer), Nicolas Gaster (editor), Asha Sharma (miscellaneous crew), Sharon Harel (producer), David Davoli (miscellaneous crew),
Genres: Biography, Drama, Romance,Actors: David Zum Brunnen (actor), Scott Davis (director), Elliot Engel (writer), Warren Gentry (editor),
Genres: ,Actors: Debbie Wiseman (composer), James Fox (actor), Robert Halmi Jr. (producer), Philip Saville (director), Hans Christian Andersen (writer), Hugh Bonneville (actor), Alison Steadman (actress), Mathieu Carrière (actor), Geraldine James (actress), Steven Berkoff (actor), Simon Callow (actor), David V. Picker (producer), Mathias Braun (miscellaneous crew), Mathias Braun (miscellaneous crew), Jan Henrik Stahlberg (actor),
Plot: A fictionalized account of the young life of Hans Christian Andersen, a young man with a penchant for storytelling but struggles to find his place in the world and gain the affection of the woman he adores. Interspersed throughout are brief interludes of the stories that will make Hans famous (The Nightingale, The Little Mermaid and The Snow Queen to name a few), which are intertwined with the events that surround his own life.
Keywords: animal, based-on-autobiography, character-name-in-title, charles-dickens, chinese, chinoiserie, copenhagen-denmark, dancing, empire-fashion, fairy-taleActors: Juliet Stevenson (actress), Nik Powell (producer), Juliet Stevenson (actress), Jane Horrocks (actress), Keith Wickham (actor), Kate Winslet (actress), Keith Wickham (actor), Simon Callow (actor), Rhys Ifans (actor), Nicolas Cage (actor), Simon Callow (actor), Michael Gambon (actor), Robert Llewellyn (actor), Robert Llewellyn (writer), Charles Dickens (writer),
Plot: The film begins with a live-action sequence set in Boston in 1857, the site of a live reading by renowned novelist Dickens. As he begins his 'story of ghosts' a woman in the audience screams because she has seen a mouse and Dickens points out that this is appropriate since his story begins with a mouse. At this point the story turns into the animated version and Dickens explains that the mouse, named Gabriel, carries a glimmer of hope amidst the glaring co-existence of rich and poor in the streets of London. Throughout the subsequent unfolding of the well-known story Gabriel acts as a miniature Greek chorus, providing younger members of the audience with a point of entry into the story and, in the case of the potentially frightening elements (the Ghosts of Past, Present and Future), a place of refuge.
Keywords: 1840s, based-on-novel, christmas, compassion, ghost, holiday, punctuation-in-title, redemption, victorian-eraActors: Simon Callow (actor), Charles Dickens (writer), Patrick Garland (director), Peter Ackroyd (writer),
Genres: Biography, Drama,Actors: Simon Callow (actor), Joby Gee (editor), Tom Kinninmont (director), Adrian Barry (actor), Neil Morkunas (actor), Phyllis Childs (actress),
Genres: Drama,Actors: Ben Cross (actor), Heathcote Williams (writer), David Bartlett (actor), Janet Amsden (actress), Rosie Marcel (actress), Victoria Plucknett (actress),
Genres: Drama,Actors: John Gielgud (actor), Jonathan Fuller (actor), Jonathan Fuller (actor), Catherine Burns (actress), Catherine Burns (actress), Stephen D'Ambrose (actor), Stephen D'Ambrose (actor), Peter Thoemke (actor), Robert Nadir (actor), Marshall Borden (actor), Oliver Cliff (actor), Oliver Cliff (actor), Paul Lassko (actor), Paul Lassko (actor), Barbara Field (writer),
Genres: Drama, Family, Fantasy,Actors: Eric Barker (actor), John Bird (actor), Warren Mitchell (actor), William Mervyn (actor), John Cleese (actor), Maurice Denham (actor), Arnold Diamond (actor), Bill Fraser (actor), Ferdy Mayne (actor), Charles Lloyd Pack (actor), David Hemmings (actor), David Hemmings (actor), Arthur Howard (actor), Peter Jeffrey (actor), William Rushton (actor),
Genres: Comedy,Actors: Walter Buschhoff (actor), Carl Wery (actor), Elmar Wepper (actor), Peter Arens (actor), Franz Josef Wild (director), Rolf von Nauckhoff (actor), Charles Dickens (writer), Klaus Havenstein (actor), Albert Hehn (actor), Walter Janssen (actor), Angelika Bender (actress), Trude Breitschopf (actress), Stefan Schnabel (actor), Hans Baur (actor), Gustl Datz (actor),
Genres: Fantasy,