Little Dorrit

(Hardback)

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A novel in which Dickens launches a ferocious onslaught against England and English society. He draws on the memory of his father in his depiction of the Marshalsea debtors prison and there is also the story of the love between an older man and a younger woman. Amy Dorrit's father is not very good with money. She was born in the Marshalsea debtors' prison and has lived there with her family for all of her twenty-two years, only leaving during the day to work as a seamstress for the forbidding Mrs. Clennam. But Amy's fortunes are about to change- the arrival of Mrs. Clennam's son Arthur, back from working in China, heralds the beginning of stunning revelations not just about Amy but also about Arthur himself.

Reviews

They don't write them like this any more. A magnificent brooding evocation of London in the middle of the 19th century, disfigured by a pitiless class system, murderous capitalism and a religion that sinks the heart. No-one, not even the most humane and idealistic, is able to escape the clutches of one or other of these evils. All are tainted. That such a sombre novel is also able to be supremely comic might seem a mystery, but isn't: it is laughter that gives us the courage to look into the abyss. -- Howard Jacobson * Kirkus UK *
Though Little Dorrit is one of Dickens's less well-known works, it has all his hallmarks * Sunday Telegraph *

Author Bio

Name: Charles Dickens Birthname: Charles John Huffham Dickens Born: 7 February 1812 Place of birth: Portsmouth, Hampshire, England, UK Spouse: Catherine Hogarth (2 April 1836 - 1858) (separated) 10 children Died: 9 June 1870 Place of death: Gadshill, England, UK Cause of death: Stroke