Our Mutual Friend

by Charles Dickens (Author), Adrian Poole (Introduction), Charles Dickens (Author), Charles Dickens (Author), Adrian Poole (Introduction), Charles Dickens (Author)

• New

  Illustrated
  1997

  $11.86

  Charles Dickens' last complete novel, Our Mutual Friend is a glorious satire spanning all levels of Victorian society, edited with an introduction by Adrian Poole in Penguin Classics . Our Mutual Friend centre??i??i??'s on an inheritance - Old Harmon's profitable dust heaps - and its legatees, young John Harmon, presumed drowned when a body is pulled out of the River Thames, and kindly dustman Mr Boffin, to whom the fortune defaults. With brilliant satire, Dickens portrays a dark, macabre London, inhabited by such disparate characters as Gaffer Hexam, scavenging the river for corpses; enchanting, mercenary Bella Wilfer; the social-climbing Veneering; and the unscrupulous street-trader Silas Wegg. The novel is richly symbolic in its vision of death and renewal in a city dominated by the fetid Thames, and the corrupting power of money. Our Mutual Friend uses text of the first volume edition of 1865 and includes original illustrations, a chronology and revised further reading. As Adrian Poole writes in his introduction to this new edition, 'In its vast scope and perilous ambitions it has much in common with Bleak House and Little Dorrit , but its Our Mutual Friend uses text of the first volume edition of 1865 and includes original illustrations, a chronology and revised further manner is stealthier, on edge, enigmatic.' Charles Dickens is one of the best-loved novelists in the English language, whose 200th anniversary was celebrated in 2012. His most famous books, including Oliver Twist , Great Expectations , A Tale of Two Cities , David Copperfield and The Pickwick Papers , have been adapted for stage and screen and read by millions. If you enjoyed Our Mutual Friend , you might like Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood , also available in Penguin Classics . The great poet of the city. He was created by London. (Peter Ackroyd).

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $25.69

  Dickens set his final full-scale masterpiece in 1860s London, creating dozens of memorable characters. All the themes that engaged him as a mature writer are featured here: love and hate, wealth and poverty, honesty and duplicity, and the formation and reformation of identity.

• New

  Paperback
  1997

  $7.10

  With an Introduction and Notes by Deborah Wynne, Chester College. Illustrated by Marcus Stone. Our Mutual Friend, Dickens' last complete novel, gives one of his most comprehensive and penetrating accounts of Victorian society. Its vision of a culture stifled by materialistic values emerges not just through its central narratives, but through its apparently incidental characters and scenes. The chief of its several plots centres on John Harmon who returns to England as his father's heir. He is believed drowned under suspicious circumstances - a situation convenient to his wish for anonymity until he can evaluate Bella Wilfer whom he must marry to secure his inheritance. The story is filled with colourful characters and incidents - the faded aristocrats and parvenus gathered at the Veneering's dinner table, Betty Higden and her terror of the workhouse and the greedy plottings of Silas Wegg.

• New

  Hardcover
  1994

  $27.27