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Our Mutual Friend (Illustrated)

Name: Our Mutual Friend (Illustrated)
Author: Charles Dickens
ISBN: 9781411463950

by Charles Dickens

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Overview

Dickens’s last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend has been called one of his most gratifying works. The story centers on the inheritance gained by ownership of a dust-heap. The would-be heir, John Harmon, is found dead in the Thames and the fortune falls into the hands of Mr. Boffin, a kind but lowly clerk who becomes a mogul as a result. Enlivened—as are all Dickens’s novels—with a vivid cast of characters worthy of their names, Our Mutual Friend is a masterpiece of the all-corrupting power of wealth.

Synopsis

Dickens's last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend has been called one of his most gratifying works. The story centers on the inheritance gained by ownership of a dust-heap. The would-be heir, John Harmon, is found dead in the Thames and the fortune falls into the hands of Mr. Boffin, a kind but lowly clerk who becomes a mogul as a result. Enlivened—as are all Dickens's novels—with a vivid cast of characters worthy of their names, Our Mutual Friend is a masterpiece of the all-corrupting power of wealth.

About the Author, Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens (1812–1870), who was an English novelist, is one of the most popular writers of all time. He is known for chapter-closing cliffhangers in his serial-style novels, a mind for social reform, and memorable characters. His most popular works include Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and A Tale of Two Cities.

Biography

Born on February 7, 1812, Charles Dickens was the second of eight children in a family burdened with financial troubles. Despite difficult early years, he became the most successful British writer of the Victorian age.

In 1824, young Charles was withdrawn from school and forced to work at a boot-blacking factory when his improvident father, accompanied by his mother and siblings, was sentenced to three months in a debtor's prison. Once they were released, Charles attended a private school for three years. The young man then became a solicitor's clerk, mastered shorthand, and before long was employed as a Parliamentary reporter. When he was in his early twenties, Dickens began to publish stories and sketches of London life in a variety of periodicals.

It was the publication of Pickwick Papers (1836-1837) that catapulted the twenty-five-year-old author to national renown. Dickens wrote with unequaled speed and often worked on several novels at a time, publishing them first in monthly installments and then as books. His early novels Oliver Twist (1837-1838), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841), and A Christmas Carol (1843) solidified his enormous, ongoing popularity. As Dickens matured, his social criticism became increasingly biting, his humor dark, and his view of poverty darker still. David Copperfield (1849-1850), Bleak House (1852-1853), Hard Times (1854), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-1861), and Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865) are the great works of his masterful and prolific period.

In 1858 Dickens's twenty-three-year marriage to Catherine Hogarth dissolved when he fell in love with Ellen Ternan, a young actress. The last years of his life were filled with intense activity: writing, managing amateur theatricals, and undertaking several reading tours that reinforced the public's favorable view of his work but took an enormous toll on his health. Working feverishly to the last, Dickens collapsed and died on June 8, 1870, leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood uncompleted.

Author biography from the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of David Copperfield.