Dickens's last completed novel, set in London along the Thames and in the shadow of great heaps of rubbish owned by a dead miser. When a fortune is left to his heir on strange conditions, a man's identity is called into question, and a web of characters is drawn together: river scavengers, social climbers, a devoted bookish girl and a schoolmaster of stormy temper. The book is a satire on money and status, mixing mystery, romance and dark humour.
Quotes
'A literary man — with a wooden leg.'
In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames
Money and goods are certainly the best of references.
Professionally he declines and he falls, and as a friend he drops into poetry.’