Works by Charles Dickens (Book Guide)

Source: Wikipedia. Commentary (works not included). Pages: 80. Chapters: Books by Charles Dickens, Novels by Charles Dickens, Plays by Charles Dickens, Short stories by Charles Dickens, Short story collections by Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Little Dorrit, Our Mutual Friend, A Tale of Two Cities, Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House, Hard Times, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dombey and Son, Martin Chuzzlewit, The Old Curiosity Shop, The Pickwick Papers, The Chimes, Barnaby Rudge, The Cricket on the Hearth, Sketches by Boz, The Signal-Man, The Frozen Deep, The Uncommercial Traveller, Charles Dickens bibliography, Master Humphrey's Clock, American Notes, The Life of Our Lord, The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, The Haunted House, No Thoroughfare, The Mudfog Papers, A Child's History of England, A House to Let, The Long Voyage, Pictures from Italy, Mugby Junction, The Battle of Life, A Message from the Sea. Excerpt: Our Mutual Friend (written in the years 1864-65) is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is one of his most sophisticated works, combining psychological insight with social analysis. It centres on, in the words of critic J. Hillis Miller, "money, money, money, and what money can make of life" but is also about human values. In the opening chapters a body is found in the Thames and identified as John Harmon, a young man recently returned to London to receive his inheritance. Were he alive, his father's will would require him to marry Bella Wilfer, a beautiful, mercenary girl whom he had never met. Instead, the money passes to the working-class Boffins, and the effects spread into various corners of London society. Like all of Dickens' works, Our Mutual Friend contains many characters (this list is incomplete): A rich misanthropic miser who has made his fortune from London's rubbish dies, estranged from all except his faithful employees Mr and Mrs Boffin. By his will, his fortune goes to his estranged son John Harmon, who is to return from where he has settled abroad (putatively in South Africa, though this is never stated) to claim it, on condition that he marries a woman he has not met, Miss Bella Wilfer. The implementation of the Will is in the charge of the solicitor, Mortimer Lightwood, who has no other practice. Before the son and heir can claim his inheritance, he goes missing, presumed drowned, at the end of his journey back to London. A body is found in the Thames by Gaffer Hexam, a waterman who makes his living from retrieving corpses and robbing them of valuables before rendering them to the authorities. The body is identified from papers in the pockets as that of the heir, John Harmon. Present at the identification is a mysterious young man, who gives his name as Julius Handford and then disappears. By the terms of the miser's will, the whole estate then devolves upon Mr and Mrs Boffin, naive and good hearted people who wish to enjoy it for them