Blending realism with non-realistic genres such as fairy-tale, allegory, and pastoral, this title presents the tale of Nell's tragedy that contains some of the author's most memorable comic and grotesque creations, including the dwarf Daniel Quilp, Dick Swiveller and Kit Nubbles.

This is the novel Dickens regarded as his favourite child and is considered his most autobiographical. As David recounts his experience from childhood to the discovery of his vocation as a successful novelist, Dickens draws openly and revealingly on his own life.

A terrifying encounter with an escaped convict in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decaying Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor - these form a series of events that change the orphaned Pip's life forever.

Samuel Pepys achieved fame as a naval administrator, a friend and colleague of the powerful and learned, a figure of substance. But for nearly ten years he kept a private diary in which he recorded, with unparalleled openness and sensitivity to the turbulent world around him, exactly what it was like to be a young man in Restoration London.