Little Dorrit

(1855-87)

Dickens's masterpiece about prison life is set in an English debtors' prison where his own father had been imprisoned. Amy Dorrit, the heroine, has spent her entire life caring for her imprisoned father. The novel portrays both the physical and psychological horrors of imprisonment and the hypocrisy of a society that allows them to continue.

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Recent Forum Posts on Little Dorrit

Question (warning: spoiler)...

If I understood the ending in the PBS series correctly (which seems to be confirmed by Wikipedia's synopsis), Amy and Arthur had the same mother, but different fathers. If so, wouldn't this have been a "show-stopper" for their marriage?

Posted By Mike_Fontenot at Mon 6 Jul 2009, 8:48 PM in Little Dorrit || 2 Replies

Read this 17 years ago,

I was forced to read Little Dorrit my senior year of High School and it was such an awful experience that it took me sixteen years to pick up another Dickens book. However, when I read Great Expectations last summer I really enjoyed it. I am now currently reading David Copperfield and I like that too. So what I am wondering is this; Is Little Dorrit an inferior work to the other two? I am trying to decide if my problem in high school was the book, or my maturity level.

Posted By JADJARHD at Sat 7 Jul 2007, 3:16 PM in Little Dorrit || 9 Replies

Chapter 36

Has anyone else noticed that Chapter 36 (the last of Book One) - 'The Marshalsea becomes an orphan' is missing from the online version? I am currently switching between reading online (when I am at work) and reading from my own hard copy (when traveling to and from/when at home), and have just realised that there is no chapter 36 online!! This might be something to check out, maybe...? There is nothing more infuriating than missing part of the story!

Posted By snowpetal at Wed 2 May 2007, 7:55 AM in Little Dorrit || 0 Replies

So Far So Interesting

I am just beginning Book the Second, and I see this novel becoming one of those wonderful, long, slow, books that will be such a shame to finish reading. I've read a number of Charles Dickens' books over the years; a few of them several times. Never Little Dorrit before. I find myself always intrigued by the the writer himself—probably because Charles Dickens' diverse characters, settings, and predicaments all have a way of gravitating right back to him, as though they were all so many fractals of his own personality. Well, and so they were; and more so, I think, than most characters reflect their respective writers. Occasionally I see Charles catching himself in his own hypocrisy, and rebuking himself for it. Doggone! A beautiful example is in this book, not far back from the end of Book the First; but I joined this forum only this evening, and I'm not sure where I saw it. Charles Dickens takes issue with a commonplace flaw of character; denounces it; then says something very much like, "Well, of course we always notice such flaws in anyone but ourselves . . . ." In this book, we have some words about minor stage personalities, which I find quite fascinating, considering that Charles Dickens' life was concerned in a major way with one such minor personality. "Just where are you going to take us this time, Charles?" I find myself wondering, as his words stray yet again into these beckoning (for him), yet dangerous (for him), references. I think the Circumlocution idea is too obvious to be very good writing, but I am trying to consider it in the light of the times. I'm not so sure that I agree that Little Dorrit is one of his very best. I like it very much, though. I'll see how I feel at the end of it. He was not attempting realism in his writing, and I do notice people taking wrong issue with his characterization. As I understand, there was no concern then that a novel should necessarily be realistic. His characters weren't "overdone"; he chose to paint all those exaggerations—and all those fabulous coincidences, too! Had some 21st Century reader suggested he was being unrealistic, he'd have said, "Of course. Your point being—?" Anyway, it's a great novel, and it is long enough to provide an excellent escape. Um—and to keep my toes in good shape, manipulating a warming trickle of hot water to maintain the bath temperature for a few pages more. :)

Posted By Grongle at Sat 25 Mar 2006, 1:05 AM in Little Dorrit || 4 Replies

The Best

Dickens is my favorite author, and Little Dorrit is my favorite book by him. Honestly, I don't think any other book is so romantic. There are others reasons of course, but I just love Mr. Clennam. But don't get me wrong - I'm not so stupid that I like books only for their romance. I think the whole circumlocution office bit is a stroke of genius! And Mr. Panks. I think next to Seth Pecksniff, Mr. Panks is one of the most memorable Dicken's characters.

Posted By Socrates399 at Tue 24 May 2005, 5:07 PM in Little Dorrit || 2 Replies

No Subject

This is really a brilliant work. Dickens' cadence is heart-wrenching, and his caustic social observations are really a joy. This is an ultimately mature work, showing a world-weary and at times embittered side of Dickens. The story is wrought with irony, and makes myriad statements on the interconnectedness if life. In Dickens' line of classics, Little Dorrit is unjustly ignored.

Posted By Larry at Tue 24 May 2005, 5:03 PM in Little Dorrit || 0 Replies

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