From 1837 to 1838, Dickens continued his literary success with Oliver Twist, a story of an orphan boy's experiences with the criminal world of London. He followed that with Nicholas Nickleby (1838-39), which exposed the abusive nature of Yorkshire boarding schools and narrated the humorous adventures of a traveling theater company. Victorian audiences made his next book, The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-41), phenomenally popular — the morality tale of Little Nell roaming the countryside with her mad grandfather as they try to evade the malicious Daniel Quilp enthralled readers and sold over 100,000 copies a week.
However, the Victorian audience did not take to Dickens' next two books, Barnaby Rudge (1841) and Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44). Dickens' first historical novel, Barnaby Rudge dealt with the Gordon Riots that occurred in England in 1780, and its poorly structured story resulted in a steady drop in sales. In Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens returned to Victorian England as a setting and used the materialism of the Chuzzlewit family to highlight a theme of selfishness. Martin Chuzzlewit received mixed reviews and sales that improved slightly throughout the course of its publication.
Technically superior to Dickens' earlier works, with a more cohesive plot and characters, Dombey and Son (1846-48) signals the beginning of Dickens' more mature works. The novel explores the theme of pride through the story of the Dombeys, a family of wealthy merchants. Dickens followed Dombey and Son with David Copperfield (1849-50), an autobiographical novel that examines Copperfield's early hardship and later rise to prominence through a first-person narrative.
