The Latest Breaking News from Dickens

When it opened in 1985, the mighty Les Mis got some rotten reviews. Forty years on, our writer sees it afresh and producer Cameron Mackintosh reflects on the show’s spectacular success

Homes without heating, bedrooms without beds. If we are to offer any hope to the children of austerity, the next few weeks will be decisive, says former prime minister Gordon Brown

Sharpen your pencils and dust off those old notebooks - it’s time to head back to English class!From tricky grammar rules you haven’t thought about in years to the classic novels that filled your school reading lists, this quiz will test both sides of your brain.Can you recall Shakespeare, Dickens,…

Letters: Readers take issue with Herbert Pocket being deemed a ‘nobody’ in an article by Zoe Williams

In need of good book recommendations? Check out this list.

The Alex Rider author on being put off Dickens for a decade, why he reads poetry in the mornings, and how reading Sherlock Holmes made him want to be a crime writer

Dmitry Krymov, who left Moscow after the Ukraine invasion, plans Dickens hybrid with UK and Russian actors

From hanged men and inky cephalopods to shadowy gothic castles, these cosmic, horror-tinged works let the Les Misérables writer and liberal political campaigner speak directly to us

Her debut, Mrs March, is being adapted by Elisabeth Moss, and her new novel has already been snapped up for the screen. Virginia Feito reveals the real-life inspiration for her shocking story of a psychopathic Victorian nanny

Elif Shafak, Sarah Perry, Jeffrey Boakye and others tell us which of the two totemic literary figures they favour

Press secretary to Harold Wilson in the late 60s and 70s who went on to work for the Daily Mirror