Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens (suggested reading .TXT) ๐
Description
Little Dorrit, like many of Charles Dickensโ novels, was originally published in serial form over a period of about 18 months, before appearing in book form in 1857.
The novel focuses on the experiences of its protagonist Arthur Clenham, who has spent some twenty years in China helping his father run the family business there. After his father dies, Arthur returns home to London. His mother gives him little in the way of welcome. She is a cold, bitter woman who has brought Arthur up under a strict religious regime concentrating on the punitive aspects of the Old Testament. Despite this upbringing, or perhaps in reaction to it, Arthur is a kind, considerate man. He is intrigued by a slight young woman he encounters working as a part-time seamstress for his mother, whom his mother calls simply โLittle Dorrit.โ Arthur senses some mystery about her motherโs employment of Little Dorrit, and proceeds to investigate.
There are several subplots and a whole host of characters. Compared to some of Dickensโ work, Little Dorrit features a good deal of intrigue and tension. There are also some strong strands of humor, in the form of the fictional โCircumlocution Office,โ whose sole remit is โHow Not To Do It,โ and which stands in the way of any improvement of British life. Also very amusing are the rambling speeches of Flora, a woman with whom Arthur was enamored before he left for China, but whose shallowness he now perceives only too well.
Little Dorrit has been adapted for the screen many times, and by the BBC in 2010 in a limited television series which featured Claire Foy as Little Dorrit, Matthew Macfayden as Arthur Clenham, and Andy Serkis as the villain Rigaud.
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- Author: Charles Dickens
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By Charles Dickens.
Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Preface to the 1857 Edition Little Dorrit Book I: Poverty I: Sun and Shadow II: Fellow Travellers III: Home IV: Mrs. Flintwinch Has a Dream V: Family Affairs VI: The Father of the Marshalsea VII: The Child of the Marshalsea VIII: The Lock IX: Little Mother X: Containing the Whole Science of Government XI: Let Loose XII: Bleeding Heart Yard XIII: Patriarchal XIV: Little Dorritโs Party XV: Mrs. Flintwinch Has Another Dream XVI: Nobodyโs Weakness XVII: Nobodyโs Rival XVIII: Little Dorritโs Lover XIX: The Father of the Marshalsea in Two or Three Relations XX: Moving in Society XXI: Mr. Merdleโs Complaint XXII: A Puzzle XXIII: Machinery in Motion XXIV: Fortune-Telling XXV: Conspirators and Others XXVI: Nobodyโs State of Mind XXVII: Five-and-Twenty XXVIII: Nobodyโs Disappearance XXIX: Mrs. Flintwinch Goes on Dreaming XXX: The Word of a Gentleman XXXI: Spirit XXXII: More Fortune-Telling XXXIII: Mrs. Merdleโs Complaint XXXIV: A Shoal of Barnacles XXXV: What Was Behind Mr. Pancks on Little Dorritโs Hand XXXVI: The Marshalsea Becomes an Orphan Book II: Riches I: Fellow Travellers II: Mrs. General III: On the Road IV: A Letter from Little Dorrit V: Something Wrong Somewhere VI: Something Right Somewhere VII: Mostly, Prunes and Prism VIII: The Dowager Mrs. Gowan Is Reminded That โIt Never Doesโ IX: Appearance and Disappearance X: The Dreams of Mrs. Flintwinch Thicken XI: A Letter from Little Dorrit XII: In Which a Great Patriotic Conference Is Holden XIII: The Progress of an Epidemic XIV: Taking Advice XV: No Just Cause or Impediment Why These Two Persons Should Not Be Joined Together XVI: Getting On XVII: Missing XVIII: A Castle in the Air XIX: The Storming of the Castle in the Air XX: Introduces the Next XXI: The History of a Self-Tormentor XXII: Who Passes by This Road So Late? XXIII: Mistress Affery Makes a Conditional Promise, Respecting Her Dreams XXIV: The Evening of a Long Day XXV: The Chief Butler Resigns the Seals of Office XXVI: Reaping the Whirlwind XXVII: The Pupil of the Marshalsea XXVIII: An Appearance in the Marshalsea XXIX: A Plea in the Marshalsea XXX: Closing In XXXI: Closed XXXII: Going XXXIII: Going! XXXIV: Gone Colophon Uncopyright ImprintThis ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain.
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Preface to the 1857 EditionI have been occupied with this story, during many working hours of two years. I must have been very ill employed, if I could not leave its merits and demerits as a whole, to express themselves on its being read as a whole. But, as it is not unreasonable to suppose that I may have held its threads with a more continuous attention than anyone else can have given them during its desultory publication, it is not unreasonable to ask that the weaving may be looked at in its completed state, and with the pattern finished.
If I might offer any apology for so exaggerated a fiction as the Barnacles and the Circumlocution Office, I would seek it in the common experience of an Englishman, without presuming to mention the unimportant fact of my having done that violence to good manners, in the days of a Russian war, and of a Court of Inquiry at Chelsea. If I might make so bold as to defend that extravagant conception, Mr. Merdle, I would hint that it originated after the Railroad-share epoch, in the times of a certain Irish bank, and of one or two other equally laudable enterprises. If I were to plead anything in mitigation of the preposterous fancy that a bad design will sometimes claim to be a good and an expressly religious design, it would be the curious coincidence that it has been brought to its climax in these pages, in the days of the public examination of late Directors of a Royal British Bank. But, I submit myself to suffer judgment to go by default on all these counts, if need be, and to accept the assurance (on good authority) that nothing like them was ever known in this land.
Some of my readers may have an interest in being informed whether or no any portions of the Marshalsea Prison are yet standing. I did not know, myself, until the sixth of this present month, when I went to look. I found the outer front courtyard, often mentioned here, metamorphosed into a butter shop; and I then almost gave up every brick of the jail for lost. Wandering, however, down a certain adjacent โAngel Court, leading to Bermondsey,โ I came to โMarshalsea Place:โ the houses in which I recognised, not only as the great block of the former
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