Biography EssayThe life story of Charles Dickens is, from several perspectives, a success story. Generally regarded today as one of the greatest novelists in the English language, Dickens had the unus...
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The English author Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was, and probably still is, the most widely read Victorian novelist. He is now appreciated more for his "dark" novels than for his humorous w...
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He was only fifty-eight when he died. His horse had been shot, as he had wanted; his body lay in a casket in his home at Gad's Hill, festooned with scarlet geraniums. Tributes poured in from all over ...
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The life story of Charles Dickens is, from several perspectives, a success story. Generally regarded today as one of the greatest novelists in the English language, Dickens had the unusual good fort...
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Charles Dickens had one thing in common with his creation Thomas Gradgrind, the heartless utilitarian in Hard Times: a love of facts. Along with fourteen novels, many of them rich in topical allusion,...
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Drawing his narrative themes from the sensation novel and the popular stage, Charles Dickens heavily freighted most of his plots with mystery, crime, and suspense. His chief legacies to crime litera...
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From the appearance of his first full-length work of prose fiction, The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, in 1836-1837, Charles Dickens has retained his place as one of the best-loved and most...
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In October 1844 Charles Dickens was in Genoa working on his second Christmas book, The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In (1845). Hoping that a long forei...
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In the following review, James asserts that Our Mutual Friend is uninspired and disappointing, filled with implausibly eccentric characters.
Our Mutual Friend is, to our perception, the poorest of ...
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In the following essay, Mundhenk maintains that some of the confusing plot elements in Our Mutual Friend are caused by the author's deliberate attempts to manipulate and deceive his readers and...
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In the following essay, Meckier discusses the use of the characters Podsnap and Boffin in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and William Morris's News from Nowhere, respectively.
During ...
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In the following essay, Horne suggests that three of the characters in Our Mutual Friend—John Harmon, Silas Wegg, and Bradley Headstone—can be compared to Homer's hero Odysseus.
...
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In the following essay, Collins examines the therapeutic quality of Dickens's use of fancy and imagination in Our Mutual Friend, and suggests that this is reflective of the author's preo...
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In the following essay, Beiderwell explores the distinct writing styles Dickens uses to describe the two different social worlds represented in Our Mutual Friend.
The first two chapters of Our Mutu...
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In the following essay, Solomon discusses the critical controversy surrounding two confusing plot lines within Our Mutual Friend: the one involving John Harmon's “death” and the o...
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In the following essay, Dvorak examines Dickens's use of Victorian popular ballads to illuminate the character of Silas Wegg and to reinforce the themes of Our Mutual Friend.
Recently (in Th...
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In the following essay, Gaughan explores the various characters in Our Mutual Friend and the different strategies they employ to negotiate their way around the roles each has been assigned by a rigid ...
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In the following essay, O'Donnell examines issues of ventriloquy and representation of narrative voice in Our Mutual Friend, suggesting that identity and relationships are called into question ...
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In the following essay, Greenstein examines the many unifying themes and motifs highlighting mutuality in Our Mutual Friend.
J. Hillis Miller has argued that the milieus of Our Mutual Friend exist ...
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In the following essay, Hobsbaum examines common misreadings of Our Mutual Friend and suggests that they are caused by an overemphasis on character, whereas a study of the novel's central image...
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In the following essay, Fulweiler explores the connections between Darwin's theories and Dickens's fiction, particularly Our Mutual Friend; both offer worlds of inter-connected individua...
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In the following essay, Shuman posits that Our Mutual Friend demystifies the Victorian domestic sphere at the same time it legitimates the professionalism of the intellectual worker.
Examining the ...
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In the following essay, Edgecombe studies the “cant” often disparaged by critics of Our Mutual Friend, and suggests that this was part of a deliberate and highly-controlled strategy to r...
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In the following essay, Lanham claims that the theme of Our Mutual Friend is predation rather than money.
Our Mutual Friend's reputation began in the cellar with Henry James' famous r...
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In the following essay, Nelson studies possible sources for the characters Betty Higden and Gaffer Hexam in Our Mutual Friend from among the poor Londoners interviewed by Henry Mayhew for his nonficti...
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In the following essay, Sherer examines Our Mutual Friend as a prime example of Dickens's ability to create humor while treating serious themes.
Dickens' enigmatic Our Mutual Friend, ...
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In the following essay, Stewart analyzes the character of Jenny Wren; unlike most critics who either ignore or disparage her, Stewart considers the character central to the novel's symbolic mea...
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In the following essay, Friedman explores the way the motifs of reading and literacy serves not only to reinforce the themes of Our Mutual Friend, but also to help move the plot forward and to define ...
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Critical Essay by Jennifer Gribble
SOURCE “Depth and Surface in Our Mutual Friend,” in Essays in Criticism, Vol. 25, No. 2, April, 1975, pp. 197-214.
In the following essay, Gribble ...
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In the following essay, Qualls suggests that Thomas Carlyle's vocabulary, stock characters, and social concerns strongly influenced Dickens's writing of Our Mutual Friend.
Though Dick...
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Question 1 of 10:The young
Steven
played Adrian Mole's friend and rival for Pandora's love. What was his character's name?Paul Sparrow
Nigel Partridge
Sammy PigeonColin HawkQuestion 2 of 10:
Ste...
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WASHINGTON — Recently my friend Bill Buckley wrote a rude column about our mutual friend, Conrad Black, on the occasion of Conrad's conviction on three counts of mail fraud and one of obstruc...
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