From 1850 to 1867, Charles Dickens produced special issues (called "numbers") of his journals Household Words and All the Year Round, which were released shortly before Christmas each year. In Collaborative Dickens, Melisa Klimaszewski undertakes the first comprehensive study of these Christmas numbers. She argues for a revised understanding of Dickens as an editor who, rather than ceaselessly bullying his contributors, sometimes accommodated contrary views and depended upon multivocal narratives for his own success. Klimaszewski uncovers connections among and between the stories in each Christmas collection. She thus reveals ongoing conversations between the works of Dickens and his collaborators on topics important to the Victorians, including race, empire, supernatural hauntings, marriage, disability, and criminality. Stories from Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, and understudied women writers such as Amelia B. Edwards and Adelaide Anne Procter interact provocatively with Dickens's writing. By restoring links between stories from as many as nine different writers in a given year, Klimaszewski demonstrates that a respect for the Christmas numbers' plural authorship and intertextuality results in a new view of the complexities of collaboration in the Victorian periodical press and a new appreciation for some of the most popular texts Dickens published.

The last of the "Christmas Numbers" compiled by Charles Dickens, this is a charming and highly entertaining series of stories from one of England's best-known and most widely read novelists. Named after the man who delivered him as a baby, Doctor Marigold is a poor hawker who, after a dreadful turn of events, finds happiness with his adopted daughter Sophy. She is a deaf mute, and to help her learn to read and communicate, Doctor Marigold "prescribes" her various stories, which he collects into a book while she is at school. These prescriptions, written by Dickens and five other distinguished Victorian writers, are tales of adventure and romance, featuring thieves, kidnappings, and witchcraft. Together they form a wonderful selection of tales that are told with the clever wit and brilliant description that characterize Dickens' writing.

Ingeniously conceived and brilliantly rendered, and set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush, "The Wreck of the Golden Mary" is a masterpiece of Victorian storytelling. En route to making their fortunes, the passengers of the Golden Mary suffer a terrifying ordeal when their vessel collides with an iceberg. Now the helpless victims of a shipwreck, they turn to the restorative powers of storytelling in a desperate attempt to raise morale. As each takes their turn, from the captain to the first mate, the Dickensian figures of miser and murderer, orphan and ghost, are brought onboard with most remarkable effect. Charles Dickens is one of England's most important literary figures. His works enjoyed enormous success in his day and are still among the most popular classics of all time.

Building on the success of his Christmas number for 1852, "A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire", Dickens used the same framing concept for 1853's "Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire". This wide-ranging round features tales of angels, ghosts, and marriages that are as treacherous as they are inspiring. With more than one horrifying account of murder, the stories carry warnings about love's dangers as well as its delights. An impressive contributor list includes Elizabeth Gaskell and George A. Sala, whose poignant tales rival Dickens' own.