Barnaby Rudge

by Dickens, Charles; Hurst, Clive; McCalman, Iain; Mee, Jon

• ISBN13: 9780192840561
• ISBN10: 0192840568
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-07-24
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Written at a time of social unrest in Victorian Britain and set in London at the time of the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots, Dickens's brooding novel of mayhem and murder in the eighteenth century explores the relationship between repression and liberation in private and public life. Barnaby Rudge tells a story of individuals caught up in the mindless violence of the mob. Lord George Gordon's dangerous appeal to old religious prejudices is interwoven with the murder mystery surrounding the father of the simple-minded Barnaby. The discovery of the murderer and his involvement in the riots put Barnaby's life in jeopardy. Culminating in the terrifying destruction of Newgate prison by the rampaging hordes, the brilliant descriptions of the riots are among Dickens's most powerful. Barnaby Rudge looks forward to the dark complexities of Dickens's later novels, whose characters also seek refuge from a chaotic and unstable world. This edition includes all the original illustrations, plus an illuminating Introduction and notes.

Author Biography

Jon Mee and Iain McCalman are joint editors ofAn Oxford Companion to the Romantic Age (1999).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vi
Introduction	vii
Note on the Text	xxv
Note on the Illustrations	xxvi
Select Bibliography	xxx
A Chronology of Charles Dickens	xxxv
Map: London at the time of the Gordon Riots, 1780	xlviii
BARNABY RUDGE
Preface 1841	3	(2)
Preface 1849	5	(4)
Barnaby Rudge	9	(653)
Appendix A: The Gordon Riots	662	(5)
Appendix B: Historical Sources and Contemporary Contexts	667	(6)
Appendix C: Dickens and Scott	673	(4)
Explanatory Notes	677