Martin Chuzzlewit (Wordsworth Classics) - Softcover

Dickens, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853262056 ISBN 13: 9781853262050

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions, 1994

Synopsis

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr John Bowen, Department of English, University of Keele.

Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz).

Martin Chuzzlewit is Charles Dickens' comic masterpiece about which his biographer, Forster, noted that it marked a crucial phase in the author's development as he began to delve deeper into the springs of character.

Old Martin Chuzzlewit, tormented by the greed and selfishness of his family, effectively drives his grandson, young Martin, to undertake a voyage to America. It is a voyage which will have crucial consequences not only for young Martin, but also for his grandfather and his grandfather's servant, Mary Graham with whom young Martin is in love. The commercial swindle of the Anglo-Bengalee company and the fraudulent Eden Land Corporation have a topicality in our own time.

This strong sub-plot shows evidence of Dickens' mastery of crime where characters such as the criminal Jonas Chuzzlewit, the old nurse Mrs Gamp, and the arch-hypocrite Seth Pecksniff are the equal to any in his other great novels. Generations of readers have also delighted in Dickens' wonderful description of the London boarding-house - 'Todgers'.

About this title

Review:

"A novel that British readers love, and American readers love to hate...the American scenes are among the most powerful things Dickens ever did in fiction" (Guardian)

"Peckniff, the arch villain of Martin Chuzzlewit, is in some ways the archetypal hypocrite and yet he's constantly surprising you...vivid detail" (David Lodge Time Out)

"One of my favourite characters in English literature is the redoubtable Mark Tapley - a curious hybrid of Jeeves and Pollyanna who inhabits the pages of Dickens's great novel, Martin Chuzzlewit." (Michael Simkins Daily Telegraph)

"Like all Dickens' novels it manages to combine social justice with humour" (Author Nicholas Rhea)

"After leaving school, I sought refuge from the perils of office life by reading under my desk or on park benches during the lunch hour. Dickens was my preferred means of escape" (Jeremy Lewis Daily Telegraph)

Book Description:

Martin Chuzzlewit is a comic masterpiece which courted controversy on publication with its scathing portrayal of nineteenth-century America

About this edition

• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 1853262056
• ISBN 13: 9781853262050
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 832
• Illustrator: Browne (Phiz) Hablot K.