It's here! Browse the 2024 Penguin Christmas gift guide
London

London

Vintage Minis

Summary

‘Wealth and beggary, virtue and vice, repletion and the direst hunger, all treading on each other and crowding together’

Could any writer portray London better than Charles Dickens? Dickens knew the city inside out, walking the streets day and night, in all weathers, and drawing inspiration from everything he saw. The fog, the mud, the churning river, the clamour of church bells, and at every corner schemes of business or pleasure – this is Dickens’s London in the company of some of his most memorable characters.

Selected from the work of Charles Dickens

VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.

A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human

Also in the Vintage Minis series:
Murder by Arthur Conan Doyle
Power by William Shakespeare
Independence by Charlotte Bronte

Reviews

  • They look good and read well. That’s win/win in our book
    Stylist

About the author

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was born in Hampshire on February 7, 1812. His father was a clerk in the navy pay office, who was well paid but often ended up in financial troubles. When Dickens was twelve years old he was send to work in a shoe polish factory because his family had been taken to the debtors' prison. His career as a writer of fiction started in 1833 when his short stories and essays began to appear in periodicals. The Pickwick Papers, his first commercial success, was published in 1836. The serialisation of Oliver Twist began in 1837. Many other novels followed and The Old Curiosity Shop brought Dickens international fame and he became a celebrity in America as well as Britain. Charles Dickens died on 9 June 1870. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.
Learn More

Sign up to the Penguin Newsletter

For the latest books, recommendations, author interviews and more