The novel's range ofcharacters - the honest, the crooked, the selfish and the self-denying - offers a portrait of a society about whose values Dickens had profound doubts.Little Dorrit is indisputably one of Dickens' finest works,written at the height of his powers.
Little Dorrit is a classic tale of imprisonment, both literal and metaphorical, while Dickens' working title for the novel, Nobodys Fault, highlights its concern with personal responsibility in private and public life. Dickens'childhood experiences inform the vid scenes in Marshalsea debtor's prison, while his adult perceptions of governmental failures shape his satirical picture of the Circumlocution Office. The novel's range ofcharacters - the honest, the crooked, the selfish and the self-denying - offers a portrait of a society about whose values Dickens had profound doubts.
Little Dorrit is indisputably one of Dickens' finest works,written at the height of his powers. George BernardShaw called it 'a masterpiece among masterpieces', averdict shared by the novel's many admirers.
PREFACE
BOOK THE FIRST
Poverty
1 Sun and Shadow
2 Fellow-Travellers
3 Home
4 Mrs Flintwincb has a Dream
5 FamilyAffairs
6 The Father of the Marsbalsea
7 The Child of the Marsbalsea
8 The Lock
9 Little Mother
10 Containing the Whole Science of Government
11 Let Loose
12 Bleeding-Heart Yard
13 Patriarchal
14 Little Dorrit's Party
15 Mrs Flintwincb has Another Dream
16 Nobody's Weakness
17 Nobody's RⅣal
18 Little Dorrit's Lover
19 The Father of the Marsbalsea in Two or Three Relations
21 Mr Merdle's Complaint
22 A Puzzle
23 Machinery in Motion
24 Fortune-Telling
25 Conspirators and Others
26 Nobody's State of Mind
27 Five-and-Twenty
28 Nobody's Disappearance
29 Mrs Flintwinch Goes on Dreaming
30 The Word of a Gentleman
31 Spirit
32 More Fortune-Telling
33 Mrs Merdle's Complaint
34 A Shoal of Barnacles
35 What was behind Mr Pancks on Little Dorrit's Hand
36 The Marshalsea Becomes an Orphan
BOOK THE SECOND
Riches
1 Fellow-Travellers
2 Mrs General
3 On the Road
4 A Letter from Little Dorrit
5 Something Wrong Somewhere
6 Something Right Somewhere
7 Mostly Prunes and Prism
8 The Dowager Mrs Gowan is Reminded that it Never Does
9 Appearance and Disappearance
10 The Dreams of Mrs Flintwinch Thicken
11 A Letter from Little Dorrit
12 In which a Great Patriotic Conference is Holden
13 The Progress of an Epidemic
14 Taking Advice
15 No Just Cause or Impediment Why these Two Persons should not be Joined Together
16 Getting On
17 Missing
18 A Castle in the Air
19 The Storming of the Castle in the Air
20 Introduces the Next
21 The History of a Self-Tormentor
22 Who Passes by this Road so Late?
23 Mistress Affery Makes a Conditional Promise Respecting her Dreams
24 The Evening of a Long Day
25 The Chief Butler Resigns the Seals of Office
26 Reaping the Whirlwind
27 The Pupil of the Marshalsea
28 An Appearance in the Marshalsea
29 A Plea in the Marshalsea
30 Closing In
31 Closed
32 Going
33 Going!
34 Gone
EXPLANATORY NOTES