Dodger
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4.6 • 7 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A brand new edition of a Terry Pratchett classic – set in Victorian London, and starring cunning but kind Dodger, as he sets off on a whirlwind adventure through the city streets
THE SEWER IS DODGER’S WORLD . . .
He hunts treasure there – coins and jewels lost in the dark and dirty drains. It’s a good life, if you don’t mind getting your hands (and arms and feet and face) dirty.
But one night, Dodger helps a young woman flee two ruffians. Now, a street urchin dressed as a gentleman, he must discover the secret behind her escape.
Along the way he’ll befriend Charles Dickens, outwit Sweeny Todd and reach the giddy heights of Victorian society.
Dodger may be living in the gutter, but he’s heading for the stars . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This superb novel from Pratchett is relatively subdued in its humor and contains virtually no fantasy, beyond a flavoring of early Victorian alternate history. It's not only a fine Dickensian novel Dickens himself figures prominently. It follows a sewer-scouring "tosher" and thief named Dodger, "a skinny young man who moved with the speed of a snake," who, like a knight in soiled armor, leaps out of a drain one night to protect a young woman who is being severely beaten. Two of London's most famous figures, Charles Dickens and social reformer Henry Mayhew, appear on the scene a moment later. A complex plot gradually unravels involving the identity of the mystery girl, known only as Simplicity, and the reasons someone powerful wants her dead. Making guest appearances are such luminaries as Benjamin Disraeli, Queen Victoria, and Angela Burdett-Coutts, the richest woman in the world at the time. Full of eccentric characters and carefully detailed London scenes, the tale embodies both Dickens's love for the common man and a fierce desire for social justice. Ages 13 up.
