It is impossible to overstate the importance of British novelist CHARLES DICKENS (1812-1870) not only to literature in the English language, but to Western civilization on the whole. He is arguably the first fiction writer to have become an international celebrity. He popularized episodic fiction and the cliffhanger, which had a profound influence on the development of film and television. He is entirely responsible for the popular image of Victorian London that still lingers today, and his characters-from Oliver Twist to Ebenezer Scrooge, from Miss Havisham to Uriah Heep-have become not merely iconic, but mythic. But it was his stirring portraits of ordinary people-not the upper classes or the aristocracy-and his fervent cries for social, moral, and legal justice for the working poor, and in particular for poor children, in the grim early decades of the Industrial Revolution that powerfully impacted social concerns well into the 20th century. Without Charles Dickens, we may never have seen the likes of Sherlock Holmes, Upton Sinclair, or even Bob Dylan. Here, in 30 beautiful volumes-complete with all the original illustrations-is every published word written by one of the most important writers ever. The essential collector's set will delight anyone who cherishes English literature...and who takes pleasure in constantly rediscovering its joys. This volume contains Part I of Barnaby Rudge, which was originally serialized in Dickens's own periodical, Master Humphrey's Clock, in 1841. Subtitled "A Tale of the Riots of Eighty," it is the story of the religious Gordon riots of 1780, told through the eyes of the gentle, simpleminded title character. As one of Dickens's lesser-known works, it remains a treat to be rediscovered by modern readers.

"Gradually, a faint brightness appeared in the east, and the air, which had been very warm through the night, felt cool and chilly. Though there was no daylight yet, the darkness was diminished, and the stars looked pale. The prison, which had been a mere black mass with little shape or form, put on its usual aspect; and ever and anon a solitary watchman could be seen upon its roof, stopping to look down upon the preparations in the street . . . By and by the feeble light grew stronger, and the houses with their sign-boards and inscriptions stood plainly out, in the dull grey morning . . . And now, the sun's first beams came glancing into the street; and the night's work, which, in its various stages and in the varied fancies of the lookers-on had taken a hundred shapes, wore its own proper form - a scaffold and a gibbet . . . " (The Complete Works of Charles Dickens, Harper & Brothers, New York and London, Barnaby Rudge, Vol. II, Chapter XIX, page 164. ) Dickens describes an activity which takes place in the early morning hours, just before sunrise. As the day begins and people start to go about their business and get ready to watch the hanging, the hangman is ready with the gallows.