Our Mutual Friend
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
“When it comes to walking the mean streets, Dickens could give modern genre authors the tour of their lives.” —Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times
When a corpse is found in the Thames River and identified as John Harmon, many lives will be forever changed. John, who had been abroad and estranged from his miserly father for years, will no longer collect his inheritance. It will instead go to the miser’s employees, Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, transforming their circumstances. The miser’s will had placed a condition on John: marry Bella Wilfer, a woman he had never met, in order to collect the estate. Now Bella is on her own—until she is generously taken in by the Boffins.
These events not only alter the course of several lives, but also end a life—that of the waterman who found John’s body. Accused by a rival of murdering the heir, Gaffer Hexam is soon found drowned as well, resulting in a puzzling mystery and setting Gaffer’s impoverished daughter on a new path that will lead her in surprising, and dangerous, directions.
Blending propulsive plot twists with sharp social satire, Our Mutual Friend is the final masterpiece completed by Victorian England’s greatest novelist.
“In addition to its realistic police procedures and incisive criminal psychology, Our Mutual Friend is steeped in the gloomy atmosphere and foreboding imagery that one associates with the modern suspense thriller.” —The New York Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
David Timson reads Dickens's last complete novel with a sense of fun. As always, Dickens creates a fabulous array of characters: the nouveau riche Veneerings, the dwarf who makes doll clothes, the bizarre schoolmaster, and the abysmally poor who trawl the Thames for bodies or daily sift the dust and dirt of Victorian England for a skimpy living. Timson's dramatic talents add dimension to each personality just the sort of acting that makes an audio experience so satisfying. Naxos has done a fine job of abridging the book (Timson also reads the unabridged version on 28 CDs). Not much is lost in terms of plot and characterization, and Dickens's great satiric and social themes come through clearly: the plight and misery of the poor and the greed and heartless stupidity of the rich. If the abridgment seems a bit disjointed, it simply follows the novel's narrative style. This is a wonderful listen for Dickens fans and novices alike.
