Part 1, Chapters 1-10 Summary

Chapter 1: A man carrying a carpetbag plods slowly up the street in the cold winter night. He has a pale face and a dark mustache, and he wears a scowl. Cold, hungry and tired, he looks for a place to spend the night. The man is a writer, but lately he has earned very little money because he has been unable to come up with any story ideas. The man reaches Benefit Street and digs through his carpetbag for the letter he has come so far to deliver. At number eighty-eight Benefit Street, he pauses. The graveyard behind the house frightens him, and he turns to flee. The man crashes into a small boy; it is Edmund. Edmund apologizes. The man stares at Edmund's ragged coat and the thin rags he wears. He asks Edmund if he is all...