Martin Chuzzlewit (Version 3)

The Chuzzlewits are a family cursed with selfishness, and old Martin's fortune has made them all vipers. Hypocritical architect Seth Pecksniff grooms his daughters to entrap the wealthy patriarch, while young Martin, disinherited for loving the gentle Mary, flees to America seeking his fortune, and himself. What he finds in the New World is a savage satire of American bombast and a harder truth about his own heart. Back in England, cousin Jonas Chuzzlewit grows increasingly sinister, a portrait of ambition curdling into murder. And in the smoky margins of Victorian London, the incomparable Sarah Gamp lurches through her duties as a midwife and nurse, perpetually drunk, perpetually hilarious, a creation so vivid she nearly steals the whole dark book. Dickens called this his favorite novel, and it's easy to see why: beneath its comedy lies a genuine examination of how selfishness poisons love, money, and the soul.