I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.
— A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens was an English writer and journalist who created some of literature's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity in his lifetime and are still widely read.
Born in Portsmouth, he left school at age 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was jailed in a debtors' prison. He later began his literary career as a journalist. He edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels and 5 novellas, and campaigned for children's rights, education and other social reforms. His success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities are among his most quoted works in our library.
Born in Portsmouth, he left school at age 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was jailed in a debtors' prison. He later began his literary career as a journalist. He edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels and 5 novellas, and campaigned for children's rights, education and other social reforms. His success began with the 1836 serial publication of The Pickwick Papers. Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and A Tale of Two Cities are among his most quoted works in our library.
Most quoted works
- Great Expectations 62
- Oliver Twist 38
- A Tale of Two Cities 36
- David Copperfield 33
- Bleak House 25
- A Christmas Carol 20
And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.
— A Tale of Two Cities
Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.
— Great Expectations
And a beautiful world we live in, when it is possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done-- done, see you!-- under that sky there, every day.
— A Tale of Two Cities
There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.
— A Christmas Carol
Mr Lorry asks the witness questions: Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked down stairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick at the top of a staircase, and fell down stairs of his own accord.
— A Tale of Two Cities
I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.
— A Tale of Two Cities
[She wasn't] a logically reasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts may count in heaven as high as heads.
— Our Mutual Friend
[T]he wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile.
— A Christmas Carol
I never had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me unto death.
— Great Expectations
In a word, it was impossible for me to separate her, in the past or in the present, from the innermost life of my life.
— Great Expectations
There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.
— Oliver Twist
Mrs Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of making her clenliness more umcomfortable and unacceptable than dirt itself. Cleanliness is next to godliness, and some people do the same by their religion.
— Great Expectations
So, I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.
— Great Expectations
— Great Expectations
He couldn't be a doctor, or he would have a quieter and more persuasive manner.
— Great Expectations
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.
— David Copperfield
I only hope, for the sake of the rising male sex generally, that you may be found in as vulnerable and soft-hearted a mood by the first eligible young fellow who appeals to your compassion.
— Oliver Twist
...and he glanced at the backs of the books, with an awakened curiosity that went below the binding. No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot.
— Our Mutual Friend
There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose.
— David Copperfield
You touch some of the reasons for my going, not for my staying away.
— A Tale of Two Cities
— Nicholas Nickleby
Company, you see - company is - is - it's a very different thing from solitude - an't it?
— The Pickwick Papers
Sudden shifts and changes are no bad preparation for political life.
— Oliver Twist