Our Mutual Friend (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels) - Softcover

Dickens, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0486812456 ISBN 13: 9780486812458

Publisher: Dover Publications, 2017

Synopsis

"Of all the Dickens I’ve read ... Our Mutual Friend remains my favorite." — Jane Smiley.
A young man returns from abroad to claim his inheritance — but he never arrives and is presumed to have drowned in the Thames. Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, a warmhearted, working-class couple, are the next heirs in line, and their generosity is tested when their windfall opens the door to a vast gallery of scoundrels, strivers, and social climbers.
Charles Dickens's genius for observing and characterizing people from every walk of life sparkles in this, his final complete novel. The great storyteller's cast of extraordinary personalities ranges from grasping Mr. Podsnap and greedy Silas Wegg to selfless Lizzie Hexam, insanely jealous Bradley Headstone, and spoiled Bella Wilfer, whose initial disappointment paves the way for a change of heart. Blending elements of mystery, horror, romance, and farce, Dickens paints a brooding portrait of the minds and motives of desperate people as well as a delightful satire of middle-class snobbery.

About this title

Review

Our Mutual Friend was the last novel Charles Dickens completed and is, arguably, his darkest and most complex. The basic plot is vintage Dickens: an inheritance up for grabs, a murder, a rocky romance or two, plenty of skullduggery, and a host of unforgettable secondary characters. But in this final outing the author's heroes are more flawed, his villains more sympathetic, and the story as a whole more harrowing and less sentimental. The mood is set in the opening scene in which a riverman, Gaffer Hexam, and his daughter Lizzie troll the Thames searching for drowned men whose pockets Gaffer will rifle before turning the body over to the authorities. On this particular night Gaffer finds a corpse that is later identified as that of John Harmon, who was returning from abroad to claim a large fortune when he was apparently murdered and thrown into the river.

Harmon's death is the catalyst for everything else that happens in the novel. It seems the fortune was left to the young man on the condition that he marry a girl he'd never met, Bella Wilfer. His death, however, brings a new heir onto the scene, Nicodemus Boffin, the kind-hearted but low-born assistant to Harmon's father. Boffin and his wife adopt young Bella, who is determined to marry money, and also hire a mysterious young secretary, John Rokesmith, who takes an uncommon interest in their ward. Not content with just one plot, Dickens throws in a secondary love story featuring the riverman's daughter, Lizzie Hexam; a dissolute young upper-class lawyer, Eugene Wrayburn; and his rival, the headmaster Bradley Headstone. Dark as the novel is, Dickens is careful to leaven it with secondary characters who are as funny as they are menacing--blackmailing Silas Wegg and his accomplice Mr. Venus, the avaricious Lammles, and self-centered Charlie Hexam. Our Mutual Friend is one of Dickens's most satisfying novels, and a fitting denouement to his prolific career. --Alix Wilber

From the Inside Flap

A satiric masterpiece about the allure and peril of money, "Our Mutual Friend revolves 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 Friend encompasses 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 Friend is one of Dickens's most complex--and satisfying--novels.

Edition details

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0486812456
• ISBN 13: 9780486812458
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 864