Volume 4 of The Dent Uniform Edition Of Dickens' Journalism, The Uncommercial Traveller And Other Papers 1859-70 is a significant literary event for Dickensian studies. Like the earlier volumes of Charles Dicken's work, the articles and writings of thise literary compendium of Dicken's writings is enhanced for academia and Dickensian scholarship by a list of abbreviations, a prefance, introduction, acknowledgements, as well as "Note on the Text and Illustrations", select bibliography, "Dicken's Life and Times 1859-70", a list of illustrations, glossary, index, and four appendices: The Great International Walking-Match; Prefaces; Descriptive headlines added by Dickens to articles in the volume which were included in UT1; and Complete listing of Dickens' known journalism, December 1833-August 1869. Highly recommended.

An audio record of Patrick Stewart's one-man rendition of Charles Dicken's
Timeless Classic. Stewart has adapted the text for his show and performs
all the characters and necessary sound effects. It is wonderful example of
the power of a good actor.

The enduring story of "A Christmas Carol" involves Ebenezer Scrooge, a greedy
grasping businessman, who is untouched by human emotion. Or so we think
until he is visited one Christmas Eve by four sprits who show him the error
of his ways. In the end a redeemed Scrooge resolves to keep the Christmas
spirit all the days of his life and to be good to his fellow men.

Stewart is able without the aid of costumes, scenery, special effects, or
other actors, to bring this timeless tale to life. His vivid
characterization of each person is all the more remarkable for the fact that
the only tools he has are his voice and the listener's imagination.

I enjoy his rendition more and more each passing year.

Unfortunately, I missed Patrick Stewart's one-man stage version of a Christmas Carol while he was still performing it. Fortunately, I decided to give the taped version a listen. After borrowing it several times from my local library, I bought my own copy to listen to every year.

Mr. Stewart does an outstanding job of bringing all the characters to life. Only a couple times in the two hours do I ever get a little lost as to who is saying which line, and then it's only for a few seconds. The combination of Dickens' words and Stewart's dramatization brings every character and description to vivid life.

It should be noted that this is an adaptation of the book. Some scenes have been cut, and other added for this recording. That doesn't interfere with my enjoyment, however, and I doubt that it will bother anyone else. I spend the two hours hanging on every word. It's over all too soon.

This has become a Christmas tradition I look forward to every year. Give it a try, and you will be captivated by it as well.

Storytelling can be so powerful when you have a great storyteller. Somehow a person reading to you, acting out the parts, can make stories come alive more than just reading to yourself. The experience can make old stories seem fresh and filled with new life. This is what I've experienced evererytime I've listened to this astonishing preformance.

In my house, it has become a Christmas Eve tradition to dim the lights, snuggle up in a blanket, grab some hot chocalate and put on these CDs. Patrick Stewart reads Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" with such heart, spirit and vigor that you cant help but get caught up in it all again! With only the sound of his voice (there is very little in the way of sound effects) he is able to bring to life not only the entire cast of characters, but the world he's reading about as well. While listening I swear I can smell the turkey and pies at Fuzziwiggs pary, feel the cold of Scooges Home and hear the laughter and clamour going on in the streets on Christmas Day.

Some things deserve to be cherished and experienced again and again. This is one of them.

OK, so maybe you can live quite nicely without ever learning about the Order of Precedence, rules for being presented at Court or the difference between a Hogshead and a dram.

If you're like me, however, you love the novels of Regency and Victorian England. I couldn't get enough of Jane Austin with her cool and witty observations on the marriage game, the passionate writings of Charlotte Bronte that seemed to reflect her own inner demons, the bucolic romances of George Eliot or Thomas Hardy's tragi-comic portrayals of men's and women's conflicts within an indifferent society.

These novelists' contemporaries understood the nuances of the society in which they placed their characters, but the modern American reader will not. For this reason, "What Jane Austin Ate and Charles Dickens Knew" is an indispensible reference book. The cultural literacy it provides can only enhance your reading of England's 19th Century literary greats.

I picked this book up after reading _Everyday Life In Regency and Victorian England_, which I thought did a decent job of describing the mundane details of English life in the 1800's. Daniel Pool's book is immensely more interesting, detailed, and enjoyable.

_What Jane Austen Ate..._ is divided into two parts: a series of essays on daily life in the 19th century, and an exhaustive glossary of words common to the folk of the period, but not to us. Both parts are engaging and

interesting, suggesting all sorts of interesting ideas for characters, scenes, plots, and schemes (Most people will read this for background on other works, but I read it to ensure historical accuracy in something I'm working on). Pool refers to classical works by Dickens, Austen and Eliot when describing a certain facet of life to help pull it all together.

This book gets 5 stars not because it's the greatest book in the world, but because it's clearly the best of its kind. Readers and writers of 19th century fiction would do well to read it.

This book is a quick overview of daily life in Nineteenth Century England. In particular, it attempts, in as small a space as possible, to answer all the questions that a modern American reader would have when reading Nineteenth Century British literature. Using many references to popular novels, the author goes through such workaday issues as food and drink, titles and social position, government and the law, and a host of other things.

This book is a real gem for American readers. It does not go into great depth on any subject, but it is encyclopedic in its reach. In particular, after chapters on many subjects, this book then goes into a 138 page (!) glossary that includes just about everything. I highly recommend this book.

Just as Clement Moore gave us the definitive Santa Claus in "A Visit from St. Nicholas" (a.k.a. "The Night Before Christmas"), Charles Dickens gave us the definitive Christmas spirit in his simple but charming novella "A Christmas Carol". First published in 1843, this supernatural story of an elderly man's redemption from his mean-spirited, miserly ways takes place in Victorian London, but its universal theme of charity towards our fellow man has endeared this classic to many a generation around the globe. In addition to its priceless role as a morality tale, the book colorfully describes the Yuletide customs practiced in England during the early nineteenth century. This Washington Square Press edition of "A Christmas Carol" is unabridged, yet you can understand why so short a book is yet published in abridged versions, especially for schoolchildren. Not infrequently, Dickens veers from the main story line and goes into tangents of a philosophical or descriptive nature, much like the converser who abruptly changes the subject only to return to it with the familiar "Anyway, ... ". I assume children (and some adults) may find these tangents cumbersome and distracting, but they are still useful in that they reflect Dickens' thoughts while writing the book. It may still be difficult for some of us to think that cold-hearted Christmas-bashers like Ebenezer Scrooge exist, but look at human nature around you, and it will be difficult no more. At a time when "Merry Christmas" is being supplanted by a more vague "Happy Holidays", and the season gives way to coarse behavior and unchecked materialism, "A Christmas Carol" is the perfect guidebook to put things into perspective.

Well, I finally read it (instead of just watching it on the TV screen).

This is what you can call a simple idea, well told. A lonely, bitter old gaffer needs redemption, and thus is visited by three spirits who wish to give him a push in the right direction. You have then a ghost story, a timeslip adventure, and the slow defrosting of old Scrooge's soul. There are certain additions in the more famous filmed versions that help tweak the bare essentials as laid down by Dickens, but really, all the emotional impact and plot development necessary to make it believable that Scrooge is redeemable--and worth redeeming--is brilliantly cozied into place by the great novelist.

The scenes that choke me up the most are in the book; they may not be your favourites. I react very strongly to our very first look at the young Scrooge, sitting alone at school, emotionally abandoned by his father, waiting for his sister to come tell him there may be a happy Christmas. Then there are the various Cratchit scenes, but it is not so much Tiny Tim's appearances or absence that get to me--it's Bob Cratchit's dedication to his ailing son, and his various bits of small talk that either reveal how much he really listens to Tim, or else hide the pain Cratchit is feeling after we witness the family coming to grips with an empty place at the table. Scrooge as Tim's saviour is grandly set up, if only Scrooge can remember the little boy he once was, and start empathizing with the world once again. I especially like all Scrooge's minor epiphanies along his mystical journey; he stops a few times and realizes when he has said the wrong thing to Cratchit, having belittled Bob's low wages and position in life, and only later realizing that he is the miser with his bootheel on Cratchit's back. Plus, he must confront his opposite in business, Fezziwig, who treated his workers so wonderfully, and he watches as true love slips through his fingers again.

It all makes up the perfect Christmas tale, and if anyone can find happiness after having true love slip through his fingers many years ago, surprisingly, it's Scrooge. With the help of several supporting players borrowed from the horror arena, and put to splendid use here.

Master storyteller and social critic, Charles Dickens, turns this social treatise on shortcomings of Victorian society into an entertaining and heartwarming Christmas ghost story which has charmed generations and become an icon of Christmas traditions. Who, in the Western world has not heard, "Bah, Humbug!" And who can forget the now almost hackneyed line of Tiny Tim, "God bless us, every one!" or his cheerfully poignant observation, that he did not mind the stares of strangers in church, for he might thus serve as a reminder of He who made the lame, walk and the blind, see. Several movie versions: musical, animated, updated, or standard; as well as stage productions (I recall the Cleveland Playhouse and McCarter Theatre`s with fondess.) have brought the wonderful characterizations to the screen, as well as to life. This story of the redemption of the bitter and spiritually poor miser, and the book itself; however, is a timeless treasure whose richness, like Mrs Cratchit`s Christmas pudding, is one that no production can hope to fully capture.

This hilarious book tells the outrageous adventures of a cast of characters to remember forever. It's a joyous, humane, and faithful portrait of the British society. It is full of acuteness, irony, tenderness and sarcasm about the human condition. As in all of his books, Dickens reflects his experiences (prison for debts, etc.) in this book which tells the love affairs, countless drunken nights and fights in which the Pickwickians get. Apparently a book whose only purpose is to entertain, it is, like all intelligent humor, a bitter but optimist critique of the human being. The cast of characters is wonderful, and you will be just delighted you picked up this volume.

"The Pickwick Papers" was the first fictional book by Dickens, and it shows how capable of good humor he was. The title's character is a restless good-spirited man, a Don Quixote with a British touch, whose adventures are less noble and a lot more messy that those of the Don. The story of his friendship with the rest of the crew is hilarious and moving at the same time. Come read the story of this excentric lot, as they drink their way in and out of trouble.

Pickwick Papers is a wonderful book, and no doubt much has been written about it in academic and literary circles. But from a layman's perspective, it is simply a fun read. One would almost think it the work of a great master approaching the end of a career, consciously deciding to lay down the heartache of Great Expectations or the martyrdom of A Tale of Two Cities to take a jovial and whimsical jaunt through the English language and the realm of imagination. Yet the bumbling and somehow delightful misadventures of the Pickwickians fall at the beginning of Dickens' career. Comic relief is offered well before Hard Times sets in.

Take an independently wealthy, magnanimous old fellow and surround him with a group of close friends. Send them together on a journey of desire to explore the world about them, meet new people, and experience the fullness of life, and you essentially have the plot of Pickwick Papers. The plethora of characters Dickens introduces along the way add considerable color to the narrative, not only because they come from such a vast array of backgrounds, but because they themselves are colorful in their own right:

The first and most obvious example might be that of Mr. Alfred Jingle, the loquacious vagabond rapscallion who rescues the Pickwickians from an altercation with a feisty coach driver. One of Mr. Pickwicks cohorts, Mr. Snodgrass, receives a blow to the eye during the incident, after which Mr. Jingle is pleased to suggest the most efficacious remedies: "Glasses round-brandy and water, hot and strong, and sweet, and plenty-eye damaged, sir? Waiter! Raw beef-steak for the gentleman's eye-nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient-damned odd, standing in the open street half an hour with your eye against a lamp-post-eh-very good-ha! ha!" While Pickwick reads the legend of Prince Bladud by candlelight, we find this description of King Hudibras: "A great many centuries since, there flourished, in great state, the famous and renowned Lud Hudibras, king of Britain. He was a mighty monarch. The earth shook when he walked-he was so very stout. His people basked in the light of his countenance-it was so red and glowing. He was, indeed, every inch a king. And there were a good many inches of him too, for although he was not very tall, he was a remarkable size round, and the inches that he wanted in height he made up in circumference." The young surgeon, Benjamin Allen, is described as "a coarse, stout, thick-set young man, with black hair cut rather short and a white face cut rather long [...] He presented altogether, rather a mildewy appearance, and emitted a fragrant odour of full-flavoured Cubas." Dickens notes that the casual visitor to the Insolvent Court "might suppose this place to be a temple dedicated to the Genius of Seediness" and whose vapors are "like those of a fungus pit." Seated in this luxuriant ambience, we find an attorney, Mr. Solomon Pell, who "was a fat, flabby pale man, in a surtout which looked green one minute and brown the next, with a velvet collar of the same chameleon tints. His forehead was narrow, his face wide, his head large, and his nose all on one side, as if Nature, indignant with the propensities she observed in him in his birth, had given it an angry tweak which it had never recovered." A final sample from a list of worthy characters too long to mention might be Mr. Smangle, the boisterous whiskered man whom Pickwick encounters in debtors prison: "This last man was an admirable specimen of a class of gentry which never can be seen in full perfection but in such places; they may be met with, in an imperfect state, occasionally about the stable-yards and public-houses; but they never attain their full bloom except in these hot-beds, which would almost seem to be considerately provided by the legislature for the sole purpose of rearing them [...] There was a rakish vagabond smartness and a kind of boastful rascality about the whole man that was worth a mine of gold."

The book itself is a goldmine full of textures, personas, venues, and idiosyncrasies of a bygone age. These are delight to behold, as the reader is thus invited to enjoy experience and descriptive beauty for their own sakes. Plot largely takes a backseat to the development of relationships, which can be seen as a myriad of subplots contributing to a never-ending story. Numerous vignettes which are incidental to the narrative add another level of richness, and it seems clear that Dickens offers them for an enjoyment all their own. There is something of "l'art pour l'art" throughout the whole work which expresses a love of language and a love of human nature. As Dickens might have summed it up, "All this was very snug and pleasant."

I don't think I've ever read a novel half as entertaining as The Pickwick Papers. I agree with the reviewer who said that it was as if Dickens had a million jokes that he wanted to get off of his chest. And such wonderful characters! The last part of the book though is more about Mr. Pickwick himself than about the club. He also becomes less of a doofus and more of a lovealbe and sympathetic character as the novel progresses. If you are ever down and feeling depressed then this is the book to read.Sam Weller is one of Dickens greatest characters, the book really comes into its own when he becomes Mr.Pickwicks servent.

In an age when we have not much time to read one short book from cover to cover, few long books will ever be good enough to read twice; David Copperfield is one of them. It has, perhaps, the most unforgettable cast of characters ever assembled in a work of fiction: Mr. Micawber, Uriah Heep, Aunt Betsey Trotwood, the Murdstones, Mr. Dick, Peggotty, and, of course, David Copperfield himself.

The story is simple enough to start. David's mother marries a man, Murdstone, who makes life hell for her and young David. David has the courage to rebel against the tyrant and is sent off to boarding school and later to a blacking factory. For readers who want to compare childhood rebellion to authority in the movies, Alexander's defiance of the Bishop in Ingmar Bergman's great movie, Fanny and Alexander, is equally dramatic and sad.

David runs away and finds his Aunt Betsey Trotwood, who takes him in and supports him, with a little help from her wise/fool companion Mr. Dick. This is story enough for many novelists, but it is only the beginning for Dickens. David has yet to meet one of the great villains in literature, that "Heap of infamy" Uriah Heep. Uriah's villainy is terrible because it is hidden under a false pretense of humilty and service to others. The final confrontation between Heap and Micawber is one of the great scenes in literature.

None of what I have said answers the question, Why read this book more than once? The most important answer to this question for the nonacademic reader is "for the fun of it." From cover to cover this novel gives so much pleasure that it begs to be read again. We want to revisit David's childhood and his confrontation with the terrible Mr. Murdstone. Mr. Micawber is one of Dickens's great creations and anytime he is part of the action we can expect to be entertained. When we pair Micawber with Heap we have the explosive combination which results in the confrontation mentioned earlier in this review.

These brief examples only scratch the surface of the early 19th century English world Dickens recreates for the reader. Some other of Dickens' novels like Bleak House may be concerned with more serious subjects, but none lay claim to our interest more than Dickens' personal favorite "of all his children," that is, David Copperfield. Turn off the television, pick a comfortable chair, and be prepared to travel along with David Copperfield as he tells us the story of his life.

Oh, I loved it! I finished David Copperfield, finally, of but an hour ago. Oh, that is such a wonderful book! I hold Charles Dickens in a sort of reverence. He has the fascinating ability to spin a web of the most spendidly horrible (here, I refer to, the remarkably AWFUL Uriah HEEP) and the most splendidly excellent (here, I refer to, the exquisite and good-natured Agnes) characters, and then he completes his tale by adding the most unforgettable of ALL people, a main hero, such as David Copperfield. Never have I been so attached to a work of fiction, and I have read a lot. Oh, the things David so heroicly endured, turning him into a most superior man! I love the story! It's most powerful. It moved me to tears and sent me into fits of laughter so many times I can't count them on my hands. And I felt such rapturous joy when Agnes and David professed their love for each other that I could hardly contain myself, and here started to laugh and cry at the same time; and I felt such overwhelming sorrow over the death of Steerforth, for I rather liked the man, even thought he took Emily away; and I love Peggotty's character to death! She was such a glorious figure of devotion and heartfelt love for David; I felt he would not have survived Murdstone and other things were it not for her steadfastness and friendship (I dearly loved her button-poppings! I found them hilarious!). And the grand Agnes, how I worshipped her! She was so real, I can see her cordial eyes looking upon David with the love of a sister, the passion of a wife. It was the most admirable work, I am sure. Dickens made Uriah Heep come alive so vividly, I see him writhing about, with contortions like a caught fish. I see Traddle's hair sticking up on end like a porcupine's, I see Miss Mowcher waddling about, I see Steerforth, tall, dark, and handsome. Oh, how David did admire Steerforth in the beginning! How he did charm! For all the critics: yes, the book was sometimes boring, and at times it was dull. But can't you see the art in it? That all Dickens wanted you to do was enjoy it and fall in love with the characters? Yes, sometimes he got a little carried away but that's hardly the point. It was worth it, because I know I'll never forget a one of them. What more can I say? I want to read the book over and over again, never ending.

For those who don't have time to read for pleasure, or perhaps spend too much time reading as part of their daily job, audio books are a godsend. You can play them while travelling to work, and you're suddenly transported to another world, if they're any good.

Fortunately this Naxos abridgement read by Anton Lesser is superb. I haven't yet found an actor better at handling both the male and female voices, old and young, rich and poor. It's so easy to forget that that is not a large-cast dramatisation -- it's just a a one-man reading, brilliantly executed.

As a story, 'David Copperfield' means a lot to me because it means a lot to my Dad. Now 73 years old, he had a troubled childhood in and around London, and a difficult relationship with his stepfather. While Dickens needed to create some out-and-out baddies such as Uriah Heep and the Murdstones, many of his characters are basically decent folk, rigidly sticking to Victorian values, and I think this is how my father still sees the world.

Much of the detail in this story is specific to England, but the basic human themes are universal. As a first pass at getting into 'David Copperfield', I would very strongly recommend this 4CD audiobook.

"Our Mutual Friend" is the last of Dickens's completed novels, and apart from "The Mystery of Edwin Drood", the only one of his novels I had hitherto not read. The more I've read Dickens, the less impressed I've been. Before I began "Our Mutual Friend", I thought that "Little Dorrit" was his worst, but I'm afraid "Our Mutual Friend" now takes the top spot in my list of Dickensian horrors.

It's not the length of the novel that's the problem (it being of average length for Dickens's larger works), nor the usual limitations of the author's writing style (the utterly unconvincing portrayal of female characters, the grindingly forced humour, the welter of two-dimensional characters, the inevitable surfeit of padding by an author writing to quota), rather I felt that Dickens was guilty of one of two fatal errors. Either he was over-ambitious in trying to develop simultaneously, and with the same importance, several plots within the novel, or he was incapable of deciding which plot and which set of characters should be the main driving force of the novel.

That's a pity, because "Our Mutual Friend" starts off well: a night scene on the Thames, a drowned man, a mystery concerning an inheritance. Unfortunately, I soon became bogged down in a lattice work of characters as Dickens skipped from one plot to another, failing convincingly to develop those plots and the characters in them.

There are interesting themes in the book - a febrile economy based on stock market speculation, a glut of rapacious lawyers, the contrast of private wealth with public squalor - 140 years later, has England changed that much? But such interesting social criticism died quickly, along with my interest in this book.

G Rodgers

An interesting assumption undergirds George Orwell's fascinating essay on Charles Dickens, that everyone reading his essay will have read and remembered nearly every word and certainly every character of Dickens. Once upon a time, this was likely true. We're all familiar with the story of eager readers waiting at the dock to greet the ocean liners that were bringing the next installment of Great Expectations. If memory serves, it is also a book by Dickens that the womenfolk read aloud to themselves in Gone With the Wind, while the men are out on their first Klan raid. It was undoubtedly the case, particularly when the art form of novel was itself young, that everyone used to read all of Dickens enormous oeuvre. Today though, I doubt whether many of us get past about four or five of his most popular works: A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Great Expectations and Oliver Twist. At least, I know I've got about five others sitting on a shelf collecting dust, their daunting size defeating my mild wish to have read them. But recently PBS ran a Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of Our Mutual Friend and it was terrific, which proved sufficient motivation to read it too.

In barest outline, John Harmon is the heir to a junkman's fortune. But his father conditioned the inheritance on his marrying a young woman, Bella Wilfer, whom the elder Harmon had once met in the park when she was a mere child. Harmon rebels at the notion, for her sake as much as his own, and when fortune presents him with the opportunity to stage his own death, he takes it. A corpse, later identified as Harmon, is found floating in the Thames by Gaffer Hexam and his daughter Lizzie, whose trade it is to loot such bodies. With John's "death," the fortune reverts to Nicodemus Boffin, who had been an assistant at the junkyard. Boffin and his wife bring Bella to live with them, in hopes of alleviating her disappointment at not receiving the fortune. The avaricious Bella is indeed determined to marry money and so has little inclination, at first, to humor the affections of John Rokesmith, the mysterious young man (and eponymous Mutual Friend) who comes to work as Boffin's personal assistant.

Meanwhile, while Gaffer Hexam has a falling out with his old partner Rogue Riderhood, Lizzie gets her bright but selfish young brother into a school, where his teacher Bradley Headstone develops an unhealthy love for Lizzie. She is also being pursued by the young lawyer Eugene Wrayburn, despite the obvious difference in their social stations.

While the first story line features the moral development of Bella and the growing love between her and John Harmon/Rokesmith, the second soon degenerates.... Beyond the two basic plots, the book is completely overstuffed--with ridiculous coincidences and impossible happenings; with characters who are little more than caricatures, some too virtuous, some too malevolent; with subplots that peter out and go nowhere. Running it's course throughout the story, like a liquid leitmotif, is the River Thames and brooding over it are the enormous piles of "dust," the garbage on which the Harmon fortune is founded. It all gets to be a bit much, but it's also really refreshing to see the great novelist at work.

This is what Tom Wolfe meant when he urged modern authors to get out and look around and write about what they found, instead of penning the increasingly insular and psychological novels which have become the staple of modern fiction. Dickens got the idea for the body fished from the water by seeing rivermen at work, for Charlie Hexam after seeing such a bright young boy with his father. The "dust" piles were in fact a real source of wealth, in a society where the refuse of the well to do could be used again by the poor. If Dickens writing is ultimately too broad for us to think of the book as realistic, it at least attempts to capture the flavor (or the stench) of a time and a place and it is animated by the society that teemed around him. If Dickens ultimately seems to have tried to do too much, better a novel like this where the author's reach exceeds his grasp than to settle for one where the author ventures little. Sure it could stand to lose a couple hundred pages, a few subplots and a dozen or so characters, and it's not up to the standard of his best work (there's a reason after all why we all read the same few books) but it's great fun and, even if just to watch the steady growth of Bella Wilfer and the steady disintegration of Bradley Headstone, well worth reading.

GRADE: B

When i was younger i used to be wary of the sheer length of such works-never fear!Not for one moment was this masterpiece a chore in any way.Ive read 300 page books which were twice as hard to get through.If you appreciate classic literature,especially Dickens this is one of those novels that is a pure pleasure simply to get back to-youll anticipate the start of your next reading session. While there may be a slight criticism of the realness or believability of some of the main characters(esp. the female ones)they are individual enough to rise above the stereotypes one may at first feel they conform to.No doubt Dickens created his own 'Dickensian' universe where the characters may not be as bare boned and raw in terms of reality as more modern writers(reviewers comment that his readership were tiring of his style in favour of more naturalist writers like George Eliot around 1860's)but within the confines of the writers world the book works wonderfully well.No matter what the subject or mood and however dark they may be there is always an exquisite brand of humour,a biting sarcastic tongue-in-cheek commentary running through Dickens writing and none so more than in Our Mutual Friend.If your reading this or others of his novels and you are not laughing then you are just NOT GETTING IT!While he uses hyperbole often in his tales there is here plenty of poignant social commentary.There is also a dark thread permeating the story which acts as a good contrast to the humour and it is through this darkness that the best lessons are learned,the best points are made. The plot is very very involved and works for the most part although one has the impression Dickens may have changed dramatically a particular storyline at the end.It is written in the unusual style in that he intentionally hints and prods the reader to a certain conclusion early on,then not much later reveals the mystery-which i think worked well. Lastly i have just watched the new BBC production of this book and as much as tv can capture this it does very well but whatever you do read the book first(the tv series while of quality must intrinsically be inferior-it will really detract from the book).Never once was this book a task and ive now promised myself to read his entire set of works-so take up this book-you wont regret it!