‘Our Mutual Friend,’ first published serially between 1864 and 1865, is the last novel completed by Victorian England’s greatest novelist, Charles Dickens. It is a satiric masterpiece about the allure and peril of money, which revolves around the inheritance of a dust-heap where the rich throw their trash.
Out of the dust-heaps and dirty streets of mid-Victorian London, Dickens creates a classic murder-mystery tale. A dead man is fished out of the Thames by a scavenger and his daughter. Who is he, and how did he get there? His death affects members of all levels of a society permeated by greed. Dickens presents an array of characters both touching and humorous from Mr. Boffin, the ‘Golden’ Dustman, to Jenny Wren the lame doll’s dress-maker. It is a story enriched by disguise and intrigue, whilst the River Thames, symbolising both polluted and renewed life weaves through it all in this novel.
The novel encompasses the great themes of Dickens' earlier works: the pretensions of the nouveaux riches, the ingenuousness of the aspiring poor, and the unfailing power of wealth to corrupt all who crave it. With its flavorful cast of characters and numerous subplots, it is one of Dickens’s most complex and satisfying novels.
