Little Dorrit

Front Cover
Wordsworth Editions, 1996 - Fiction - 740 pages

With 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
Copyright

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About the author (1996)

Charles Dickens, perhaps the best British novelist of the Victorian era, was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England on February 7, 1812. His happy early childhood was interrupted when his father was sent to debtors' prison, and young Dickens had to go to work in a factory at age twelve. Later, he took jobs as an office boy and journalist before publishing essays and stories in the 1830s. His first novel, The Pickwick Papers, made him a famous and popular author at the age of twenty-five. Subsequent works were published serially in periodicals and cemented his reputation as a master of colorful characterization, and as a harsh critic of social evils and corrupt institutions. His many books include Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Bleak House, Great Expectations, Little Dorrit, A Christmas Carol, and A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in 1836, and the couple had nine children before separating in 1858 when he began a long affair with Ellen Ternan, a young actress. Despite the scandal, Dickens remained a public figure, appearing often to read his fiction. He died in 1870, leaving his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished.

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