The Charles Dickens Collection, Volume 1 (Oliver Twist / Martin Chuzzlewit / Bleak House / Hard Times / Great Expectations / Our Mutual Friend) (Slim Packaging)

This box of Dickens dramas is a wonder. My wife and I rate it probably as the best "literary" made-for-TV drama series that we've seen yet. Yes, we've both read most of the books, and I've actually lectured on a few of them. But what a treat to see these solid, caring, often imaginative presentations, with fine direction, a few star actors filling key roles, abetted by superb work from the other players. The sets and costumes. too, open up the Dickens world in their own persuasive way. Very rarely do the productions seem narrowly stagy or limited; they have a real movie feel. Could anyone conceivably do these as well as the British, or more specifically the BBC? Hard to believe.Most of the Dickens novels are big sprawling productions where a great many characters appear, cross paths, and become part of a story that illuminates some key aspects of the social reality of the Victorian Age. The wonder is that, as presented here, the stories also seem very contemporary and relevant. The script-writers are really expert at leaving out certain things in the texts and yet conveying the complexity and sweep of the story. There are so many delicious moments in these shows: Lady Dedlock's confrontations with Tulkinghorn, Tom Pinch's seeing the light about Pecksniff in Martin Chuzzlewit, the wonderful opening of Bleak House where Lizzie helps her father fish corpses from the Thames. Yes, these are not played just as entertainment; there is real darkness here, moral darkness, the darkness of poverty, of narrowness and stupidity, and the filth that accompanied the glitter of Victorian life is not concealed. These are balanced, of course, by the warmth Dickens always generates when things go right, and when good people work together. Compulsive viewing, we found.I often found that the language of the great Victorian writers was too much for the slick and quick readers among my students. Well, here is a way of tasting something of the Dickens language, of entering the Dickens world, without straining to master the idiom. I'm not advocating that we stop encouraging people to read Dickens, but here is another road to his wonderful world. Those who have read him will enjoy almost all of this, while others may be led into a print-world they will treasure.One sour note: speaking of language, why does the BBC preface these dramas with such idiotic advertisements for their other productions? These noisy, stupid come-ons are totally out of place and show complete contempt for the (presumably) North American viewers at whom they're directed.

Highly recommended. These versions were first shown on PBS in the mid-80's and are superior to the adaptations they have shown recently of a couple. (The latest "Our Mutual Friend" even gave away the entire surprise in its first five minutes! This one keeps the surprise in its proper place!) The brilliant Tom Wilkinson plays Mr. Pecksniff perfectly in "Martin Chuzzlewit" with Paul Schofield. Diana Rigg is tragic and superior in "Bleak House" and I'm delighted to find Joan Hickson as Miss Havisham! In an extra on the "Hard Times" DVD, this being the only adaptation that is unwatchable...in the extra, is a spooky half hour adaptation of "The Signalman" with Denham Elliott, well worth the purchase. The unfortunate policy of Amazon in accepting returns of DVDs only within a month-long period necessitates watching the DVDs quickly---some stories are 8 hours long. I would have preferred not to binge-watch them, and I still have "Great Expectations" and "Oliver Twist" to go but the month is up today, so hopefully the discs continue to work.. One, "Martin Chuzzlewit" did freeze up and skip; turning the player off and on again seemed to fix that. Excellent production values and adaptations!I turned off the DVD player and turned it back on, and it worked fine.

A Christmas present for my wife which did not work out well. A similar problem with this type of set was mentioned in one 1 star review. This package appeared to be re-sealed, but the discs were clean and copied to both sides of the disc, not usually a good sign. I looked up the seller and it appears they typically sell games not DVD Sets. Very few sellers of this product, so several signs that things would not work out well. Amazon did give me debit card credit for the purchase price (the seller was not a Prime seller). I did try to contact the seller via email, no response. Buyer beware.

Dickens’s writing is wonderful and this BBC collection is outstanding. So many great acting performances in the five works included. All excellent, but my favorite is a story that I was previously unfamiliar with - “Martin Chuzzlewit”. We are pleased to own this Charles Dickens collection.

I can't really add to the other 5-star reviews. All of our discs work perfectly on our blu-ray player. Someone mentioned most of the players are unknowns, but we found they were mostly people we had seen on other British shows. I did not see anyone mention Diana Rigg's appearance in Bleak House. What a treat.

What a shame that these great stories are drowned by dismal, blaring music, terrible audio quality and poorly preserved color film! Shame on BBC Video for this inexcusable presentation. It's a good thing we've read all the books and know the stories or we would have been lost just trying too follow. There are no subtitles in this either so you are on your own trying to understand what the voices are saying.

I see other reviewers have given this set 5 stars. I cannot quite justify 5, overall, which for me, means pretty much everything has to be right. These books on DVDs are fairly true to the Dickens originals. The actors, for the most part, do their jobs well. Of course, Dickens was a genius of a writer, so no complaints with the stories at all. What I found a bit negative, though, are the sets, and at times, the costumes. Even the lighting and cinematography has a rather obvious low budget look about it. Think made-for-TV, then also think low budget, soundstage instead of location, and you will have the idea. These are not bad discs, but just don't expect them to look like Hollywood productions, because they definitely will not. Packaging is nice, with each disc having its own binder.

It was in excellent condition and arrived very quickly.

This set contains a lot of individual stories all set around the same time period of Dickens. Surprising was that all the stories were great. Usually with a combination you get a few that are so so but not with this set.

Great but some of the films date back as many as 30 years, so they seem dated from a production point of view.

Have tried to watch several of the discs-Oliver Twist (the first beginning side of the disc is blank the opposite side reads, but what good is that if you cannot see the start of it.Bleak House - the disc sticks and you have to fool around with it to get it to continue.Not good reproduction at all

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