DICKENS, CHARLES JOHN HUFFAM

by G.K. Chesterton Chesterton was, among very many other things, a literary critic of the sort that has become lamentably rarer as the business of criticism has become increasingly a province claimed by academic scholars. That is to say, he wrote about what he loved. For the new Fourteenth Edition of Britannica (1929) he wrote this biographical appreciation. Dickens, Charles Major Works: Novels The Pickwick Papers (1837); Oliver Twist (1838); Nicholas Nickleby (1839); The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge (1841), two novels first published in a clock framework, later abandoned, under the title of Master Humphrey's Clock; Martin Chuzzlewit (1844); Dombey and Son (1848); David Copperfield (1850); Bleak House (1853); Hard Times (1854); Little Dorrit (1857); A Tale of Two Cities (1859); Great Expectations (1861); Our Mutual Friend (1865); The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870, unfinished). Christmas Books A Christmas Carol (1843); The Chimes (1845, for 1844); The Cricket on the Hearth (1846, for 1845); The Battle of Life (1846); The Haunted Man (1848). Stories (Christmas stories) The volume entitled Christmas Stories in collected editions includes A Christmas Tree (1850); What Christmas Is as We Grow Older (1851); The Poor Relation's Story (1852); Nobody's Story (1853); The Seven Poor Travellers (1854); The Holly-Tree, sometimes called The Holly-Tree Inn (1855); The Wreck of the Golden Mary (1856); The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857); Going into Society (1858); The Haunted House (1859); A Message from the Sea (1860); Tom Tiddler's Ground (1861); Somebody's Luggage (1862); Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings (1863); Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy (1864); Doctor Marigold (1865); Mugby Junction (1866); No Thoroughfare (1867). (other Stories): in collected editions generally appended to the volume entitled Reprinted Pieces, [The Lamplighter (1841);] To Be Read at Dusk (1852); Hunted Down (1859); George Silverman's Explanation (1867); Holiday Romance (1868; children's story in 4 parts; pt. 2, The Magic Fishbone, often reprinted separately). Other works Sketches by Boz, 2 series (1836, together, 1839, included Dickens' first published work, A Dinner at Poplar Walk, 1833); Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838) and Sketches of Young Couples (1840), both usually appended to the Sketches by Boz volume, in collected editions, which also usually contains The Mudfog Papers (contributed to Bentley's Miscellany, 183738); American Notes (1842); Pictures from Italy (1846); The Life of Our Lord (completed 1849, for his children; published 1934); A Child's History of England (185254); The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices (with Wilkie Collins, contributed to Household Words ; often included in the volume entitled Christmas Stories); Reprinted Pieces (1858; contributed to Household Words, 185056); The Uncommercial Traveller (1861, amplified 1868, 1875; contributed to All the Year Round, 186069); Plays and Poems, ed. by R.H. Shepherd (1885); Miscellaneous Papers, ed. by B.W. Matz (1908; the most substantial posthumous collection, mainly essays contributed to Household Words, 185059; 16 further items, in the volume retitled Collected Papers, in The Nonesuch Dickens, 1937); Uncollected Writings from Household Words 18501859, ed. by Harry Stone (1968).