Whichever one of his novels I'm reading at the time.....

I will have to read them all again, soon. My favourite is David Copperfield, without any doubt. I remember the first time I read it, when I was about twelve years old, in Italian translation. I literally could not put it down until I finished, something that has happened with very few other books. After that I read it two other times, in English (finally!!), and appreciated it even more.
How is it possible NOT to like Dickens????

"Our mutual friend", for the sick passions. I'm a fan of sick passions. :)

It's a tough choice. I re-read David Copperfield quite frequently, so there's something in there that draws me back. The same goes for Our Mutual Friend and Bleak House; I can't imagine a world without those novels in it. For sheer gusto and gothic vision I'd have to go for Great Expectations. I read extracts from it when I was young, then read the whole thing in one go when I was twenty. It really took my imagination.

Of course, being a Londoner, it's fascinating to read his novels and walk where the characters walked. I also like to read Dickens' journalistic work. I know he's got a lot of faults (over-sentimentality, sexism, preachy tendencies to name a few) but his characters are somehow bigger than all that. Which is quite an achievement.

Indeed, this is a tough one. Great Expectations was my first Dickens novel, so I am partial to it; however, I think I have to go with Oliver Twist (my user name being based on a character and all...).

To answer fairly, I would have to lock myself away in a cabin somewhere for weeks and read them all back-to-back. Which, as I type that, I think that sounds like a great plan--perhaps not terribly feasible, but it sounds very appealing.

Hera, I am glad to hear that others enjoy walking where characters walk. When I was in London last, I took a Dickens walking tour; it was brilliant! In Dublin, I also walked where many of James Joyce’s characters walked. Perhaps it is a bit silly to some people, but I find it very interesting.

Message edited by its author, Mar 26, 2007, 5:17pm.

Like others I find this a difficult question to answer. Oliver Twist was the first Dickens novel I read, so it has a special place for me. And of those I have read (I'm in the process of reading all of his fiction) I believe Great Expectations is his greatest achievement; an opinion that may change.

However, my favorite of his novels has to be David Copperfield. Having just reread it I find that it gains further depth and charm for me as I mature and I look forward to reading it again.

Message edited by its author, Mar 27, 2007, 9:29am.

Dodger, can I join you? But can it please be a 5 star cabin with a 50 metre pool and an excellent wine cellar?

Sure tomcat, I was thinking of something more along the lines of Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond; but if you’re paying, sure, lets make it a 5-star...and let’s add a personal chef, too! ;-) The only problem I can see is that all of this might take away from our reading of Dickens...

I like them all but I suppose my favourite is David Copperfield. I loved Pegotty and Barkus and the affirmation that "Barkus is willin'"; Mr Micawber, God love him, was so hopeless but always expecting something to turn up. Gosh, I'll have to re-read, is Steerforth in this novel??

Oh yes, Amanda! Steerforth is in it.

I was a big fan of The Pickwick Papers because it was so much fun.

I love love love Nicholas Nickleby.

Bleak House. And the most recent BBC series, while waaaay long, was nothing but excellent. It's his most involved story and touches on just about every theme Dickens ever flirted with (which is just about everything).

But I'm not at all prepared to own up to how many of his major works I have yet to read.

I will say this: Great Expectations? I think it's a borderline *crime* to give this to young kids as their introduction to Dickens. Didn't work for me at all as an adult...

>14 I agree mike, I'm watching the BBC's 'Bleak House' series at the moment and I just love it!! I plan to read the book later on.... it might even become my new Dickens favourite :)

As far as owning up goes, I'm not ashamed to admit that until earlier this year I'd only read Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations. After joining LT (and this group in particular) I got motivated to read David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby and most recently, Our Mutual Friend. Oliver Twist and Hard Times are now in my TBR pile. I'm so glad I re-discovered Dickens!

For me, of those I have read which is most but not all, it would be a head-to-head between Bleak House and Little Dorrit, with David Copperfield in third place.

Bleak House and Little Dorrit are panoramic novels, depicting various parts of society, upper, middle and working class and lumpen. I think I would have to give first place to Bleak House} because it does not have a villain, though it does feature an impossible heroine in Esther. Not even Tulkinghorn is truly bad according to his own lights. Dorrit has two pantomime villains in Henry Gowan and Monsieur Legaud.

David Copperfiled it occurs to me is similarly villain-free. I except the Murdstones as they are seen through the eyes of a child, and are naturally a bit larger than life.

I really enjoyed Great Expectations. "Pip" says some really funny things.

Nicholas Nickleby is my favourite and next favourite is David Copperfield.

Great Expecations.

It's the only one I've read so far (but I plan to read much more by Dickens)

I'll soon receive some of his greatest works from The Norwegian Book Club (English editions): Bleak House, David Copperfield, A Christmas Carol, Pickwick Papers etc.

Kjell, you are in for a real wonderful treat!!!!!

Wow, I can't believe all the people who have David Copperfield as their favorite. I enjoyed it, but it's probably my least favorite Dickens so far. I just got so upset with David for marrying the wrong person!

I love Bleak House and The Pickwick Papers. And A Christmas Carol, of course!

Well, wisewoman, as in everything, it is just a matter of taste...
:-))

I LOVE The Pickwick Papers. It's my personal favorite. It's like an adventure story for grown-up children, and the characters--Sam Weller and his Dad, especially--are fantastic. Although it doesn't address the sort of problems that later books would cover (money, courts, poverty, injustice, jail, etc), it manages to avoid the sloppy, sappy Little Nellishness that plagues his later work as well. Plus, it has bar-none the greatest Christmas I ever recall reading in literature. The wintry ride to the manor, with everyone in good cheer, followed by the walk through the fields to get to the house, where they find everyone outside waiting for them...Then there's the wedding, and the card games, and the dancing and ice skating and ale and ale and ale. The whole story is a carefree road trip, led by a truly decent human being who nonetheless manages to get feisty when the situation calls for it. What sadness there is in the book is more melancholy and low-key than dramatic (I speak of the ending, which, though happy, does have its moments of sniffiness). If I could resurrect Dickens, I believe I should give him a typewriter, all the food and drink and women he wanted, and lock him in a closet until he wrote Pickwick 2.

I also love Nicholas Nickleby, which is another sort of road epic, and find the scenes where Nicholas works for the theater company to be very well done.

I like Bleak House a lot, and it rounds out my trio of Dickens favorites. I think BH is the best in quality of Dickens' stuff, but of course there's a big difference between a favorite thing and the objective best. Not that I'm saying BH is overrated at all--just that we can't help liking what we like!

Message edited by its author, Jun 11, 2008, 5:23pm.

Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend are my favorites though I enjoy them all. I remember in graduate school taking a Dickens class and having to read a novel a week. I always managed and now try to reread one or two a year. There's a stunning audible.com reading of Our Mutual Friend that makes it come completely alive. I feel its issues (esp. economic speculation, materialism, poverty and superficiality) speak to us today.

I'd always go for Bleak House because there's no much to look out for as you read through. Did you know that someone took some of the words of the Reverand Chadband and interspersed them with the words of a tele-evangelist and no one could tell them apart?

After that it tends to be which ever I've read last, except Barnaby Rudge which I ploughed through once and will need persuading to have another go.

Message edited by its author, Jul 20, 2008, 6:02pm.

Oh do have another go at BR. There are some great things in it: a midnight journey across a wintery heath,
wonderful descriptions of riot and mayhem, and some of Dickens's funniest characters. Look out for some hilarious passive aggressive behaviour from Mrs Varden and delusional behaviour from her maid Miggs.

Bleak House for sure! It's oceanic! My first was The Old Curiosity Shop; since I loved it enough to keep reading him, I knew I was a true Dickens Disciple. Like Auntie C, Barnaby Rudge was something of a trudge the first time, but I know I will eventually reread it and find a lot to love.

LizzieD--

That is so interesting that you and a few others say that Bleak House is your favorite. I had trouble with it. I picked it up because the Masterpiece Theater was intriguing. I think I didn't like Esther as much as I did in the adaptation. I am just interested what were your favorite aspects of it?

Oceanic is a very interesting adjective. So you liked the wide scope of the novel?

Elizabeth, how nice to find a new post here! I find everything in Bleak House - it's huge, full of life, mysterious, all-of-a-piece and all-emcompassing.........oceanic.
I'm not crazy about Esther either, but I like her better than I like Ada. The writing is Inimitable; the atmosphere is breath-taking; I adore many of the other characters; and the mystery. I WILL NOT start rereading it right now although I've almost talked myself into it again. Do you like other Dickens? Do try it again.

Tale of Two Cities and the bit cliched answer: David Copperfield. I plan to read Little Dorrit soon because I loved the Masterpiece Theater. Little Dorrit had been on my list to read for some time before the adaptation. You know how some books sit on your mental list for some time. Little Dorrit is one of those books. I think it is the next classic piece of literature I will read.

I hesitated to answer this question because I've only read A Christmas Carol, Bleak House and Great Expectations, but I think that even if I read everything by Dickens, Bleak House will always be my favourite. I studied it and wrote about it a couple of years ago and that always enriches the experience for me. I like the description "oceanic"--it fits so well. I loved the atmosphere and many of the characters (but not Esther, Ada or Richard).

Elizabeth, why should David Copperfield feel like a cliche? It's wonderful!
I don't find Tale of Two Cities to be typical Dickens, so it's somewhat low on my most-loved list. I do, however, read and reread Little Dorrit with great pleasure. Nickelini, I think you have read the best and some of the upper-middling. Will you read more?

Yep, I aim to read a Dickens a year, maybe more (I'm almost graduating from university, so will be able to actually pick my own books in the near future!). Next up is Tale of Two Cities because I've owned it for about twenty years.

As I've said before I think Our Mutual Friend is Dickens at his most mature and satisfying, IMO. (nothing H about it). If you have not read this, you really should give it a try. Another of my favorites, although it falls into somewhat the same category as A Tale of Two Cities because of its relative brevity, is Hard Times. Many people who like Dickens don't care for it though. It reminds me, in a way, of The Mayor of Casterbridge, or should I say Casterbridge reminds me of Hard Times}?

I like Mayor of Casterbridge. I will admit that I started Hard Times in college but only read about 80 pages or so. It was the end of the semester and that was one of the classes I didn't need to read for. I was reading Portrait of a Lady for a different English class.

David Copperfield is a cliched answer because everyone who likes Dickens loves David Copperfield. Or so I feel. This group talks about that book quite a bit. Maybe I am wrong but that is my feeling.

Gene, have you and I had this conversation before? I put Our Mutual Friend at number 2 on my most-loved list. I also enjoy Hard Times a lot and can't quite understand what's offensive there that is not offensive in other CD's. (I know I've been involved in this conversation before. Somebody demanded to know what I liked about *HTs* The answer is "pretty much everything that I like about Dickens in general." As a teacher who had to relearn education jargon from time to time, I was not even put off by Gradgrind and McChoakumchild going on and on about theory.)
(Elizabeth, it sounds as though you have a wonderful English major! I'm headed over to your profile forthwith.)

This is a conversation I have about every six months. As more people discover LT and then Dickens it all comes round again.

36-
I loved being an English major. I miss it a lot now that I am out in the "real world". However I do enjoy choosing which books I am going to read.

#35 - I don't really get all the love for Copperfield, to be honest. As Dickens goes, it's not particularly challenging (not much Dickens is, really, but still...). Plot? No, not reallly, other than a looooooong string of vingettes of terrible stuff happening TO David, with David basically being nothing more than a passive observer of his own fate. That just doesn't make for compelling reading, or at least it doesn't in the case of DC. Dickens is brilliantly comic OR dramatic, but he's not good at being both simultaneously, which is why DC doesn't work for me.

>39

"I don't really get all the love for Copperfield, to be honest. As Dickens goes, it's not particularly challenging"

I'm not sure what you mean by "challenging" here, but I doubt that it's the only valid reason for reading.

"Plot? No, not reallly, other than a looooooong string of vingettes of terrible stuff"

Along with vignettes of wonderful stuff. Some people would say that's how life is.

"with David basically being nothing more than a passive observer"

Biting his stepfather, running away from the blacking factory, proposing to Dora, proposing to Agnes--all these were things that David did, right?

"That just doesn't make for compelling reading, or at least it doesn't in the case of DC."

Then why have so many people voluntarily read it and enjoyed doing so?

de gustibus non est disputandum!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE David Copperfield!!!!!!!!

I found Copperfield slow going at first, but got traction after his miserable childhood scenes.

If I recall correctly, I liked Nickleby better than Copperfield but was a little annoyed how similar they were.

All the various (minor) characters and sub-plots make David Copperfield such an interesting book - the Micawbers, Dora, Agnes, Uriah Heep, Little Em'ly, etc., etc.

David Copperfield is hilarious. It's not my favorite Dickens (

ALL RIGHT, people!!!!!!! I'll give Copperfield another shot, and from the beginning, even. It might kill me, but if it doesn't, it'll make me stronger. :)

Sheesh.

Trollope is still better... (runs away, head tucked waaaaay down low)... :)

mikeepatrick, you are a SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Trollope, I believe, is better at sarcasm and skewering; Dickens' attempts at doing so with Americans in Martin Chuzzlewit is quite painful! That having been said, they're both great writers!

Fave Dickens so far ... The Pickwick Papers? I recall it as funny and suspenseful, which is true of the second part of David Copperfield also (though I was hoping Lil Emily would head off to a bordello in outstate Nevada after a while!). The Old Curiosity Shop has problems plot-wise, but pretty much defines Victorian melodrama as a genre. Our Mutual Friend was even tougher traction than DC for me - it's really for Dickens fans, and definitely not recommended for "novices".

Little Dorrit struck me as sort of "meh", "there", "what-EVER". Dombey and Son pretty nuch similar, though Susan Nipper is one of the more memorable of his characters (see also: Betsy Trotwood from DC).

I love Trollope, but I've never felt like there was a comparison - in my mind, reading Trollope is a hugely different experience from reading Dickens. Maybe this is because of the series aspect, the focus on Parliament, a different handle on characters - I don't know. I just don't think of them as comparable...

What exactly makes there a rivalry, makes mikeepatrick run away screaming at saying one's better than the other? Is it just because they're both Victorian male authors who wrote a ton of books - the equivalent of saying Fitzgerald is better than Hemingway?

Put me down as a Dickens-is-great-Trollope-is-a-bit-meh.

I think it's because a Dickens novel is an immersive experience, an entire world created which both is and is not our our own. I've always thought him nearer to the magical realists than to Trollope.

Favourites Bleak House and Pickwick Papers which are magnificent in totally different ways. Great Expectations is, I think, the most nearly perfect novel - I can't really think of anything that doesn't work - having to publish in weekly, rather than monthly, instalments might have reined in the wilder flights of his imaginations. The trouble with this theory is that Hard Times is not, IMO, nearly as good.

Did I say, "I love Dickens?" I do. Whatever his great, great faults, they pale in memory beside his great, great, greater writing. Pick a page - any page. There's something memorable. Just to prove it, I'm going to do it.........*running to shelf and back*
O.K. My heart quails, but I picked up Barnaby Rudge by mistake, and the first sentence my eye lights on (p. 316) ends, "---Hugh gave one knock, that echoed through the dark staircase like a ghostly summons, and made the dull light tremble in the drowsy lamp." I had hoped for something other than description, but this will do. Any number of Victorians (and others) might have written the "ghostly summons," but who else would have written "drowsy" for the lamp? On the next page, describing the knighting of Sir John Chester, "He knelt down a grub, and arose a butterfly."
Page after page after page - and I love it!

That was beautiful! I love it when we can stand by our favorite authors so strongly.

LizzieD, you are SO right!