Title: Little Dorrit  

Author: Charles Dickens

Genre:Classic Literature   

Publisher: Penguin Classics

Format: Paperback

Pages:985

Rating: 4/5 stars

Synopsis (Goodreads):

A novel of serendipity, of fortunes won and lost, and of the spectre of imprisonment that hangs over all aspects of Victorian society, Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit is edited with an introduction by Stephen Wall in Penguin Classics.

When Arthur Clennam returns to England after many years abroad, he takes a kindly interest in Amy Dorrit, his mother’s seamstress, and in the affairs of Amy’s father, William Dorrit, a man of shabby grandeur, long imprisoned for debt in Marshalsea prison. As Arthur soon discovers, the dark shadow of the prison stretches far beyond its walls to affect the lives of many, from the kindly Mr Panks, the reluctant rent-collector of Bleeding Heart Yard, and the tipsily garrulous Flora Finching, to Merdle, an unscrupulous financier, and the bureaucratic Barnacles in the Circumlocution Office. A masterly evocation of the state and psychology of imprisonment, Little Dorrit is one of the supreme works of Dickens’s maturity.

Stephen Wall’s introduction examines Dickens’s transformation of childhood memories of his father’s incarceration in the Marshalsea debtors’ prison. This revised edition includes expanded notes, appendices and suggestion for further reading by Helen Small, a chronology of Dickens’s life and works, and original illustrations.

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 Little Dorrit, you might like Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge, also available in Penguin Classics.

Review:

Ah Dickens, there is just something I love about his writing!

Little Dorrit shows what debtors prison was like in England back in the 1800s and the negative stigma surrounding the inmates. Little Dorrit is born in the prison, and while she is not an inmate, she continues to choose the prison because the people she loves are in there. Her father has assumed a role as “father of the prison”, which is interesting as he does not necessarily take his role as Little Dorrit’s’ father seriously.

There is a fun cast of characters in this book, which is pretty typical for Dickens novels. His characters really make me laugh, and the villains drive me crazy, which they are meant to! Little Dorrit, or Amy, is a strong character who is kind and compassionate to the other characters in the novel, so you cannot help but love her!

If you’re looking for a fun Dickens book, then I would definitely check it out!

Happy reading!