The Charles Dickens 200th Anniversary Collection comprises short works previously unrecorded for LibriVox - fiction, essays, poetry, letters, magazine articles and speeches - and each volume will be a potpourri of all genres and periods of his writing. This first volume was released on Dickens' 200th birthday, February 7th 2012 and further volumes followed during the anniversary year.<br /><br />Volume 1 includes short stories including, amongst others, <i>The Holly Tree</i>, the first part of <i>Holiday Romance</i> and three pieces from <i>Mugby Junction</i>.<br /><br />Some items requiring a little further explanation are <i>Prince Bull</i>, written as a fairy tale, but in reality a scathing attack on the Government's handling of supplies to the troops in the Crimean War; <i>Old Lamps for New Ones</i> in which Dickens makes clear his low opinion of the ethos of the Pre-Raphaelite school of painting; and <i>Frauds on the Fairies</i>, a polemic against George Cruikshank's bowdlerisatio
