Our Mutual Friend

by Dickens, Charles (Author); Poole, Adrian (Editor/introduction); Poole, Adrian (Notes by)

• ISBN13: 9780140434972
• ISBN10: 0140434976
• Additional ISBN(s): 9780140430608
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-02-01
• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• More Book Details

Summary

A satiric masterpiece about the allure and peril of money,Our Mutual Friendrevolves around the inheritance of a dust-heap where the rich throw their trash. When the body of John Harmon, the dust-heap's expected heir, is found in the Thames, fortunes change hands surprisingly, raising to new heights "Noddy" Boffin, a low-born but kindly clerk who becomes "the Golden Dustman." Charles Dickens's last complete novel,Our Mutual Friendencompasses the great themes of his earlier works: the pretensions of the nouveaux riches, the ingenuousness of the aspiring poor, and the unfailing power of wealth to corrupt all who crave it. With its flavorful cast of characters and numerous subplots,Our Mutual Friendis one of Dickens's most complexand satisfyingnovels.

Author Biography

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He died in Kent on June 9, 1870. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know not only hunger and privation,but also the horror of the infamous debtors’ prison and the evils of child labor. A turn of fortune in the shape of a legacy brought release from the nightmare of prison and “slave” factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years’ formal schooling at Wellington House Academy. He worked as an attorney’s clerk and newspaper reporter until his Sketches by Boz (1836) and The Pickwick Papers (1837) brought him the amazing and instant success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. In later years, the pressure of serial writing, editorial duties, lectures, and social commitments led to his separation from Catherine Hogarth after twenty-three years of marriage. It also hastened his death at the age of fifty-eight, when he was characteristically engaged in a multitude of work.


Adrian Poole is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vii	(2)
Introduction	ix	(16)
A Dickens Chronology	xxv	(3)
Further Reading	xxviii	(5)
A Note on the Text	xxxiii
OUR MUTUAL FRIEND	1	(800)
Contents	3	(3)
List of Illustrations	6	(5)
VOLUME I	11	(404)
Book the First: The Cup and the Lip	11	(202)
Book the Second: Birds of a Feather	213	(202)
VOLUME II	415	(386)
Book the Third: A Long Lane	415	(200)
Book the Fourth: A Turning	615	(186)
Explanatory Notes	801	(40)
Appendix 1: The Illustrations	841	(4)
Appendix 2: The Number Plans	845