Oliver Twist never stood a chance — or so the world decided the moment he was born. Orphaned, hungry, and desperate, Oliver falls into Fagin's den of thieves and the brutal clutches of Bill Sikes — until a wounded stroke of luck lands him in the care of the kind Rose Maylie. For the first time, he knows warmth. Safety. A home. But Fagin is conspiring with a mysterious stranger who knows more about Oliver's past than anyone should. Happiness, for a boy like Oliver, has never come without a price. This is a story about what society does to its most defenceless — and what it owes them.

Pip grows up an orphan in the Kent marshes, until a chance encounter with an escaped convict—and the arrival of a mysterious fortune—lifts him into the life of a London gentleman. Convinced his future is tied to the cold and captivating Estella, he eagerly leaves his old world behind. But as Pip acquires polish, he also acquires illusions about love, status, and the true source of his “great expectations.” What he must eventually learn is both simple and unsettling: that becoming a gentleman is far easier than becoming a good one.

Mr Ebenezer Scrooge was not a gentleman inclined toward festivity, generosity, or, indeed, people at large. Precise in accounts and resolute in spirit, he conducted his affairs alone after the passing of his equally disagreeable partner, Jacob Marley. It is therefore of some consequence that, upon a Christmas Eve he would much prefer to ignore, Marley should return—bearing a warning not easily dismissed. What follows are three visitations, each more unsettling than the last, compelling Mr Scrooge to consider what he has been, what he is, and what he may yet become. By morning, he comes to understand a truth long neglected: that a life measured only in profit is, in the end, a poor account indeed.