The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices

Charles Dickens · Wilkie Collins

Jan 2011 · The Floating Press

About this ebook

Throughout his lifetime, Charles Dickens produced several works of fiction and non-fiction in collaboration with his friend and fellow writer, Wilkie Collins. This fictionalized account of a walking tour the two took together highlights the pair at their best. The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices is a hilarious and engaging tale that will please Dickens fans and those with an affinity for top-notch travel writing.

About the author

Charles Dickens, perhaps the best British novelist of the Victorian era, was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England on February 7, 1812. His happy early childhood was interrupted when his father was sent to debtors' prison, and young Dickens had to go to work in a factory at age twelve. Later, he took jobs as an office boy and journalist before publishing essays and stories in the 1830s. His first novel, The Pickwick Papers, made him a famous and popular author at the age of twenty-five. Subsequent works were published serially in periodicals and cemented his reputation as a master of colorful characterization, and as a harsh critic of social evils and corrupt institutions. His many books include Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Great Expectations, Little Dorrit, A Christmas Carol, and A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in 1836, and the couple had nine children before separating in 1858 when he began a long affair with Ellen Ternan, a young actress. Despite the scandal, Dickens remained a public figure, appearing often to read his fiction. He died in 1870, leaving his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished.