Book description
Penguin Classics e-books give you the best possible editions of
Charles Dickens's novels, including all the original illustrations,
useful and informative introductions, the definitive, accurate text as
it was meant to be published, a chronology of Dickens's life and notes
that fill in the background to the book. This Penguin Classics edition
of Barnaby Rudge also includes a map of London at the time of
the riots in the novel.
Set against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, Barnaby
Rudge is a story of mystery and suspense which begins with an
unsolved double murder and goes on to involve conspiracy, blackmail,
abduction and retribution. Through the course of the novel fathers and
sons become opposed, apprentices plot against their masters and
Protestants clash with Catholics on the streets. And, as London erupts
into riot, Barnaby Rudge himself struggles to escape the curse of his
own past. With its dramatic descriptions of public violence and
private horror, its strange secrets and ghostly doublings, Barnaby
Rudge is a powerful, disturbing blend of historical realism and
Gothic melodrama.
Charles Dickens (1812-70) was a political reporter and journalist
before establishing his reputation as a novelist with PICKWICK PAPERS
(1836-7). His novels captured and held the public imagination over a
period of more than thirty years. John Bowen teaches English at the
University of Keele. He has written widely on Charles Dickens and is the
author of 'Other Dickens: Pickwick to Dombey' (OUP, 2000).
