David Copperfield was Dickens` `favourite child`, and is a novel of personal development with richly comic as well as deeply poignant moments. Great Expectations also traces the progress of a young man through life but, as a novel of the author`s maturity, is expressed in subtler shades of nuance. Oliver Twist is more black-and-white than either, highlighting the incorruptibility of young Oliver as he battles with the evil of Fagin and Bill Sikes. A Christmas Carol is both a ghost story and a moral tale which defined the pattern of Christmas celebrations. The four books in one volume represent much of Dickens` finest writing. This elegant edition is quarter bound in bonded leather, with head and tail bands, a ribbon marker, gilt top edge, and illustrated front and back boards.