Little Dorrit

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Summary

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

About the author

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was born in Hampshire on February 7, 1812. His father was a clerk in the navy pay office, who was well paid but often ended up in financial troubles. When Dickens was twelve years old he was send to work in a shoe polish factory because his family had been taken to the debtors' prison. His career as a writer of fiction started in 1833 when his short stories and essays began to appear in periodicals. The Pickwick Papers, his first commercial success, was published in 1836. The serialisation of Oliver Twist began in 1837. Many other novels followed and The Old Curiosity Shop brought Dickens international fame and he became a celebrity in America as well as Britain. Charles Dickens died on 9 June 1870. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

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