Dickens' last completed novel traces John Harmon's covert observation of Bella Wilfer, whom he must marry if he is to inherit a fortune.

With an Introduction and Notes by Deborah Wynne, Chester College and illustrated by Marcus Stone, "Our Mutual Friend", Dickens' last complete novel, gives one of his most comprehensive and penetrating accounts of Victorian society. Its vision of a culture stifled by materialistic values emerges not just through its central narratives, but through its apparently incidental characters and scenes. The chief of its several plots centres on John Harmon who returns to England as his father's heir. He is believed drowned under suspicious circumstances - a situation convenient to his wish for anonymity until he can evaluate Bella Wilfer whom he must marry to secure his inheritance. The story is filled with colourful characters and incidents - the faded aristocrats and parvenus gathered at the Veneering's dinner table, Betty Higden and her terror of the workhouse and the greedy plottings of Silas Wegg.

A guide to one of my best, world-class books
Well, if, like me you've been struggling to come to terms with your rampant imagination and like the idea of dead bodies floating in the River Thames, or chunks of dead bodies preserved in glass bottles, well then, I suppose this little number is just for you. Give it a try. Charles.

Michael Slater is Professor of Victorian Literature at Birkbeck College in the University of London. He was editor of The Dickensian (1968-77) and President of the International Dickens Fellowship (1988-90). He has published many books and articles on Dickens.

2008-09-02 Dickens' Night Vision!

The figures in this boat were those of a strong man with ragged
grizzled hair and a sun-browned face, and a dark girl of nineteen or
twenty, sufficiently like him to be recognizable as his daughter.
The girl rowed, pulling a pair of sculls very easily; the man, with
the rudder-lines slack in his hands, and his hands loose in his
waistband, kept an eager look out. He had no net, hook, or line,
and he could not be a fisherman; his boat had no cushion for a
sitter, no paint, no inscription, no appliance beyond a rusty
boathook and a coil of rope, and he could not be a waterman; his
boat was too crazy and too small to take in cargo for delivery, and
he could not be a lighterman or river-carrier; there was no clue to
what he looked for, but he looked for something, with a most intent
and searching gaze. The tide, which had turned an hour before,
was running down, and his eyes watched every little race and eddy
in its broad sweep, as the boat made slight head-way against it, or
drove stern foremost before it, according as he directed his
daughter by a movement of his head. She watched his face as
earnestly as he watched the river. But, in the intensity of her look
there was a touch of dread or horror.



Dickens's last completed novel opens in a dark world. The Thames is indeed a river of death. The opening plays on our attempt to apprehend the purpose of such night wandering. And any attempt at logical resolution is defeated by denial. How many times do we assuage fear through rational enquiry?

Yet the solution to this dilemna is our worst fear: death and ignoble death at that; the male fisherman trawls the river for bodies; suicides and murder victims for financial gain. Gaffer Hexman is a river vulture who travels out each night with his daughter Lizzie;a girl with a pure face; a vulture 'married' to an angel.

I doubt Dickens wrote anything more nightmarishly pervasive: London's River Styx transporting lost creatures to Hades via Dickens' own Charon, yet mysteriously accompanied by Persephone, who is just as lost as those she has been forced to seek...

One of the best novels Dickens ever created. Unmissable, especially at night!