Little DorritWith an Introduction and Notes by Peter Preston, University of Nottingham. With Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz). Little Dorrit is a classic tale of imprisonment, both literal and metaphorical, while Dickens' working title for the novel, Nobody's Fault, highlights its concern with personal responsibility in private and public life. Dickens' childhood experiences inform the vivid scenes in Marshalsea debtor's prison, while his adult perceptions of governmental failures shape his satirical picture of the Circumlocution Office. The novel's range of characters - the honest, the crooked, the selfish and the self-denying - offers a portrait of society about whose values Dickens had profound doubts. Little Dorrit is indisputably one of Dickens' finest works, written at the height of his powers. George Bernard Shaw called it 'a masterpiece among masterpices', a vedict shared by the novel's many admirers. |
Contents
PREFACE I | 1 |
BOOK THE FIRST Poverty | 3 |
Sun and Shadow | 5 |
FellowTravellers | 18 |
Home | 31 |
Mrs Flintwinch has a Dream | 43 |
Family Affairs | 46 |
The Father of the Marshalsea | 58 |
Nobodys State of Mind | 290 |
FiveandTwenty | 302 |
Nobodys Disappearance | 314 |
Mrs Flintwinch Goes on Dreaming | 322 |
The Word of a Gentleman | 330 |
Spirit | 344 |
More FortuneTelling | 359 |
Mrs Merdles Complaint | 368 |
The Child of the Marshalsea | 68 |
The Lock | 77 |
Little Mother | 87 |
Containing the Whole Science of Government ΙΟΙ | 101 |
Let Loose | 119 |
BleedingHeart Yard | 128 |
Patriarchal | 137 |
Little Dorrits Party | 158 |
Mrs Flintwinch has Another Dream | 170 |
Nobodys Weakness | 179 |
Nobodys Rival | 191 |
Little Dorrits Lover | 201 |
The Father of the Marshalsea in Two or Three Relations | 210 |
Moving in Society | 221 |
Mr Merdles Complaint | 234 |
Machinery in Motion | 250 |
FortuneTelling | 265 |
Conspirators and Others | 281 |
A Shoal of Barnacles | 378 |
What was behind Mr Pancks on Little Dorrits Hand | 386 |
The Marshalsea Becomes an Orphan | 398 |
BOOK THE SECOND Riches | 407 |
FellowTravellers | 409 |
Mrs General | 424 |
On the Road | 428 |
A Letter from Little Dorrit | 443 |
Something Wrong Somewhere | 446 |
Something Right Somewhere | 460 |
Mostly Prunes and Prism | 476 |
The Dowager Mrs Gowan is Reminded that it Never Does | 486 |
Appearance and Disappearance | 497 |
The Dreams of Mrs Flintwinch Thicken | 512 |
A Letter from Little Dorrit | 520 |
In which a Great Patriotic Conference is Holden | 525 |