A unique collection of Dickens stories, rarely seen in print, establishing him as one of the masters of the detective genre

Charles Dickens was one of the great pioneers of detective fiction. While the larger-than-life characters in his novels have settled themselves in the public imagination, his detectives have had a profound effect on the development of crime fiction, and Dickens is now seen as the first major publicist for the police detective. Here, Peter Haining has assembled a fascinating selection of Dickens's detective stories. Added to these are extracts from the novels in which the men of the law make their mark, including Mr. Nadgett from Martin Chuzzlewit, the first serious detective in an English novel, and Inspector Bucket from Bleak House.