Our Mutual Friend Summary
Charles Dickens

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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... Read more

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 ... Read more

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,... Read more

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... Read more

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 ... Read more

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 ... Read more

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... Read more

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... Read more

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 ... Read more

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 ... Read more

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... Read more

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... Read more

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... Read more

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... Read more

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 ... Read more