Our Mutual Friend Illustrated

Our Mutual Friend illustrated Charles Dickens - Our Mutual Friend, written in the years 186465, is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is one of his most sophisticated works, combining savage satire with social analysis. It centres on, in the words of critic J. Hillis Miller, quoting from the character Bella Wilfer in the book, "money, money, money, and what money can make of life."[1]Most reviewers in the 1860s continued to praise Dickens' skill as a writer in general, though not reviewing this novel in detail. Some found the plot too complex, and not well laid out.[2] The Times of London found the first few chapters did not draw the reader into the characters. However, in the 20th century reviewers have found much to approve in the later novels of Dickens, including Our Mutual Friend.[3] In the late 20th and early 21st century, some reviewers suggested that Dickens was experimenting with structure,[4][5] and that the characters considered somewhat flat and not recognized by the contemporary reviewers[6] were true representations of the Victorian working class and key to understanding the structure of the society depicted by Dickens in this novel.

Our Mutual Friend (1864-5) Dickens’ last completed novel, has been critically praised as a profound and troubled masterpiece, and yet is has received far less scholarly attention than his other major works. This volume is the first book-length study of the novel. It explores every aspect of Dickens’ sustained imaginative involvement with his age. In particular its original research into hitherto neglected sources reveals not only Dickens’ reactions to the important developments during the 1860s in education, finance and the administration of poverty, but also his interest in phenomena as diverse as waste collection and the Shakespeare tercentenary. The Companion to Our Mutual Friend demonstrates the varied resources of artistry that inform the novel, and it provides the reader with a fundamental source of information about one of Dickens’ most complex works.

First published serially between 1864 and 1865, "Our Mutual Friend" is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens. The death of a wealthy miser, who is estranged from all except his trusted employees, Nicodemus and Henrietta Boffin, brings his son John Harmon back to London in order to claim his inheritance. The patrimony carries with it one condition, that he marries a woman he has never met, Miss Bella Wilfer. When a body is found floating in the Thames, it is presumed to be John, and the inheritance instead passes to the Boffins. The kind-hearted working class Boffins take into their household the disappointed bride to be Miss Wilfer and treat her as their own daughter, pampering her with their newfound wealth. They also accept the generous offer of John Rokesmith to attend to their financial affairs for free. Rokesmith, who also goes by the alias of Julius Handford, is in fact the heir John Harmon, presumed to be dead. Dickens's novel is a thematically rich one, addressing the struggle of man between societal expectations and the desire to follow one's heart. Rich with a symbolism of rebirth, "Our Mutual Friend" brilliantly dramatizes the impact that wealth plays upon society.