Third in the list of popularity is probably The Old Curiosity Shop, in which appears Little Nell, the description of whose pathetic death is found in every school reader. This volume also tells the story of Mr. Quilp, the dwarf, the Marchioness, and Dick Swiveller. Oliver Twist was written partly as an attack on workhouses in Dickens’s day. It tells us the story of a poor waif, and takes us among thieves, introducing us to the famous Fagin, Bill Sikes and Nancy. Little Dorrit is the story of the Marshalsea, the great debtors’ prison in which Dickens’s own father at one time resided. Dombey & Son tells the pathetic story of little Paul Dombey, the boy mate to Little Nell; Martin Chuzzlewit introduces us to the inimitable Pecksniff and family. Barnaby Rudge is a sort of detective story, telling of a murder and how it was found out. Bleak House and Nicholas Nickleby are also considered to be among the best of Dickens’s novels. By many his greatest is thought to be A Tale of Two Cities, an intensely dramatic historical novel of the French Revolution. It is entirely different from anything else Dickens ever wrote, yet the pathetic and sympathetic character-drawing makes it entirely unlike the historical novels of Scott or Dumas. His short Christmas stories are also among his best work, especially A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, and The Cricket on the Hearth. Either may be read in an hour or two. W. E. Henley considers Barbox Bros., a beautiful and simple story of a lame girl, a little child, and a man running away from his birthday, even better; but it is not found in most complete editions and only recently has been published in separate form.