from the back cover: In a gloomy, neglected house Miss Havisham sits, as she has sat year after year, in a wedding dress and veil that were once white, and are now faded and yellow with age. Her face is like a death's head; her dark eyes burn with bitterness and hate. By her side sits a proud and beautiful girl, and in front of her, trembling with fear in his thick country boots, stands young …
from the back cover: 'Please, Mr Murdstone! Don't beat me! I've tried to learn my lessons, really I have, sir!' sobs David. Although he is only eight years old, Mr Murdstone does beat him, and David is so frightened that he bites his cruel stepfather's hand. For that, he is kept locked in his room for five days and nights, and nobody is allowed to speak to him. As David grows up, he lear…
from the back cover: London in the 1830s was no place to be if you were a hungry ten-year-old boy, an orphan without friends or family, with no home to go to, and only a penny in your pocket to buy a piece of bread. But Oliver Twist finds some friends - Fagin, the Artful Dodger, and Charley Bates. They give him food and shelter, and play games with him, but it is not until some days later that…
When young Pip accidentally meets a convict out in the marsh one Christmas Eve, he has no idea that his life is about to change--forever. The amazing events following that encounter, and the strange tale of Miss Havisham and her adopted daughter Estella, have made Great Expectations a must-read since it was first serialized in 1860. Now, young readers can enjoy Dickens’s engrossing story in…
After surviving fourteen long years with her horrible aunt, and nothing but a doll and an old handkerchief for company, Esther Summerson's life is finally looking a little brighter. She's going to school and making friends, real friends! The only thing Esther's missing now is a mother. But long-lost parents don't just turn up out of the blue. Do they?
David's life isn't easy. His father is dead and his mother is getting married to the meanest man in the country. To top things off, when he is sent to school, David discovers punishments more terrible than he can imagine. Surely life can't get any worse! The only happy ever afters David knows are in the pages of his favourite books. Can he rewrite his own ending?
Amy Dorrit's father has been in prison for as long as she can remember. That s totally normal, right? Just like doing chores for horrid Mrs Clennam, fixing her sister's dresses (without getting any thanks) and saving her own dinner to feed her father. But when Mrs Clennam's son returns from abroad, he brings with him a host of family secrets and turns Amy's normal life on its head.
Coketown is no place for imagination. There are facts and figures and absolutely nothing else, or so Thomas Gradgrind thinks. When the circus appears in town, it brings Sissy Jupe with it. A young girl who has been abandoned by her father and is taken in by Thomas Gradgrind. Full of fun and energy, will Sissy save the Gradgrind children from a miserable life of facts and figures before it's too…
Pip's just your average boy. He has no parents, lives with his scary sister and once met an escaped criminal on Christmas Eve. Totally normal. And things get even stranger when a mysterious stranger starts paying him loads of money. Sure, Pip's loving his new life of luxury, but will he ever find out who's paying the bills, and what they want from him in return?