WORDSWORTH CLASSICS : LITTLE DORRIT PB

With an Introduction and Notes by Peter Preston, University of Nottingham. With Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz). Little Dorrit is a classic tale of imprisonment, both literal and metaphorical, while Dickens working title for the novel, Nobodys Fault, highlights its concern with personal responsibility in private and public life. Dickens childhood experiences inform the vivid scenes in Marshalsea debtors prison, while his adult perceptions of governmental failures shape his satirical picture of the Circumlocution Office. The novels range of characters - the honest, the crooked, the selfish and the self-denying - offers a portrait of society about whose values Dickens had profound doubts. Little Dorrit is indisputably one of Dickens finest works, written at the height of his powers. George Bernard Shaw called it ‘a masterpiece among masterpices’, a vedict shared by the novels many admirers.