Our Mutual Friend
1865
Money. That's the engine of this dark, glittering masterpiece. When John Harmon's body surfaces in the Thames, his inheritance passes to the Boffins, a humble couple suddenly drowning in gold. But the dead man's money carries a curse: it turns Boffin cruel, Bella mercenary, and every soul who touches it into something uglier than before. Dickens spins his final novel around a dust-heap, literally the trash the rich throw away, and uses it to expose the rot at the heart of Victorian society. The Thames itself becomes a character, dark and greedy, yielding up bodies and secrets with equal indifference. His cast is vast and vicious: the toad-like Silas Wegg scheming for a fortune, the beautiful Lizzie Hexam refusing to sell her honesty, the gentleman Eugene Wrayburner playing dangerous games with a woman's reputation. This is Dickens unbound: his satire sharper than ever, his social critique more savage, his psychological insight more unsettling than in any earlier work. For readers who want their classics dark, complex, and willing to name what money makes of us.
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“And O there are days in this life, worth life and worth death.””
— Charles Dickens
“No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot.””
— Charles Dickens
“Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious, John dear, to cry for joy.””
— Charles Dickens
“Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never have had it?””
— Charles Dickens
“Love, though said to be afflicted with blindness, is a vigilant watchman.””
— Charles Dickens
“A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once won, goes through fire and water for the winner, and never changes, and is never daunted.””
— Charles Dickens
“And this is the eternal law. For, Evil often stops short at istelf and dies with the doer of it! but Good, never.””
— Charles Dickens
“And O there are days in this life, worth life and worth death. And O what a bright old song it is, that O 'tis love, 'tis love, 'tis love that makes the world go round!””
— Charles Dickens
“And yet I love him. I love him so much and so dearly, that when I sometimes think my life may be but a weary one, I am proud of it and glad of it. I am proud and glad to suffer something for him, even though it is of no service to him, and he will never know of it or care for it.””
— Charles Dickens
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Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Lex, lex-books.com/book/our-mutual-friend-7361157c-0006-4dd1-9a91-74dd4cee603c.Dickens, C. (1865). Our Mutual Friend. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/our-mutual-friend-7361157c-0006-4dd1-9a91-74dd4cee603cDickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/our-mutual-friend-7361157c-0006-4dd1-9a91-74dd4cee603c.
