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    The Battle of Life
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    The Battle of Life
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    The Battle of Life
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    The Battle of Life

    By Charles Dickens

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The Battle of Life: A Love Story is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in 1846. It is the fourth of his five "Christmas Books", coming after The Cricket on the Hearth and followed by The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain. The setting is an English village that stands on the site of a historic battle. Some characters refer to the battle as a metaphor for the struggles of life, hence the title.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherStart Classics
    Release dateDec 1, 2013
    ISBN9781627939027
    Author

    Charles Dickens

    Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is the most popular and, many believe, the greatest English author. He wrote many classic novels, including David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and A Christmas Carol. Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities are available from Brilliance Audio.

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    Reviews for The Battle of Life

    3.5/5

    19 ratings3 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This is the fourth of Dickens' series of Christmas books, but it is quite different from the earlier volumes. It lacks the supernatural element of the previous works, and is more like a long modern short story. After a theme setting prologue about an ancient battle field, the 'short story' starts briskly with the scene set (summer in the countryside) and characters introduced (two daughters of a country doctor, dancing among apple harvesters). It is very Somerset Maugham. Of course, it is Dickens, not Maugham, so the story ends with a complicated twist, and the obligatory happy ending. I enjoyed this book, perhaps because it was different in many ways from other Dickens' works - the writing is concise, the characters interesting without being caricatures, the comic elements understated. Wikipedia tells me that it is one of Dickens' lesser known works and has never attained a high. It seems that I am out of step with popular opinion. Read February 2012.
    • 4/5
      The fourth of Dickens' Christmas Books, I thought this one was the least Christmassy of the five books. Dickens uses a fictional battle which took place to illustrate the mental/emotional battles of life we all face. The tale follows Dr Jeddler who refuses to take anything in life seriously and his two beautiful daughters. It's a difficult book to describe without giving away too much of the plot but in the end, the self-sacrifice of his daughters leads to the reform of the Doctor. I enjoyed this book but thought the means by which the self sacrifice was achieved was a little bit unbelievable. 3.75 starsInterestingly, Dickens himself was not completely satisfied with how this idea had been worked out in this short novella and was eventually persuaded by a friend to rework the idea in a full length novel which was called A Tale of Two Cities.
    • 4/5
      I loved this short novel especially because, like Dr, Jeddler,one of the main characters, I have two delightful daughters who are all the world to me. It's Dickens-what more can I say?