Master Humphrey's Clock and A Child’s History of England

This volume combines two titles of great biographical interest. The weekly miscellany, Master Humphrey's Clock, besides providing the original setting for The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge, was the scene of Dickens's revival of Mr. Pickwick and the Wellers. A Child's History of England is not representative of Victorian schoolroom history: filled with distrust for the 'good old days,' writes Derek Hudson in the Introduction, it gives 'an unsparing picture of prolongued wickedness in high places, exposed with lurid detail and much rough sarcasm.'