Maarten Chuzzlewit

Dickens called this his darkest novel, and he meant it as a compliment. The Chuzzlewits are a family built on self-interest, where every generation is twisted by greed, and old Martin Chuzzlewit's fortune has everyone scrambling for position. Young Martin must learn what the Chuzzlewit name truly means before he can earn his redemption, descending into poverty and humiliation in a journey that tests every fiber of his pride. But it is the American section that cemented this novel's reputation for savage brilliance. Dickens travelled to America himself and returned with a scalpel, dissecting the hollow promises of the New World, its land-speculation frenzies, its violent contradictions between liberty and slavery. The result is one of the mostbitter satirical portraits in English literature. Beneath the family drama churns a murder plot involving the detestable Jonas Chuzzlewit, whose gentle exterior conceals something far darker. It is Dickens at his most unsparing, his most comic, and his most profound.