SOURCE: Hollington, Mike. “Time in Little Dorrit.” In The English Novel in the Nineteenth Century: Essays on the Literary Mediation of Human Values, edited by George Goodin, pp. 109-25. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972.

In the following essay, Hollington claims that while Little Dorrit seems to be unconcerned with time, temporal matters are of central importance in the novel.

The purpose of this essay is to suggest the importance of temporal process in Little Dorrit, both as a theme and as an aspect of Dickens's narrative technique. The topic is neither new nor recondite, but it is, I believe, vitally important, especially so because Little Dorrit easily gives rise to the impression that it is not very much concerned with time at all. When we read John Wain's round assertion that “it is his most static novel; its impact is even less dependent on plot than is customary...