For Robert Graves, the writing of Charles Dickens was full of inherent difficulties. From its very repetitiveness to its extreme length, he doubted whether readers could ever fully enjoy the riches of even his most famous works. Seeking to bring Dickens back to the general reader and rekindle the excitement with which his books were originally received, Graves here presents his own retelling of one of Dickens' great masterpieces. The result is the essence of the original - the situations, characters, inimitable dialogue - sharpened into modern focus with careful pruning, trimming and abridging.

Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 - 7 December 1985) was an English poet and novelist, scholar, translator and writer of antiquity, specialising in Classical Greece and Rome. During his long life he produced more than 140 works. Graves's translations and innovative analysis and interpretations of the Greek myths, the memoir of his early life, Good-Bye To All That, and his speculative study of poetic inspiration, The White Goddess, have never been out of print. Graves earned his living by writing popular historical novels, including I, Claudius (for which he was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize), King Jesus, The Golden Fleece and Count Belisarius. He was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1961 and made an honorary fellow of St John's College, Oxford, in 1971.