Book description
'I plainly see to what foul uses all this money will be put ...
sowing perjury, hatred, and lies among near kindred, where there
should be nothing but love'
Old Martin Chuzzlewit, in despair at a family more interested
in his wealth than his wellbeing, drives out his grandson and
namesake. While the younger Martin leaves to make his own way in the
world, love of money drives the hypocritical Pecksniff into scheming
his way closer to the older man, and compels Jonas Chuzzlewit to even
darker deeds.
Dickens thought Martin Chuzzlewit 'in a hundred points
immeasurably the best of my stories'. A sinister, funny novel of
greed, selfishness, blackmail and murder, it also sees Dickens's
scathing moral sense make the voyage to America.
The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in
English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the
beginning of the First World War.
Charles Dickens (1812-70) had his first, astounding success with
his first novel The Pickwick Papers and never looked back. In
an extraordinarily full life he wrote, campaigned and spoke on a huge
range of issues, and was involved in many of the key aspects of
Victorian life, cajoling, moving and irritating. He completed fourteen
full-length novels and volume after volume of journalism. He travelled
extensively and wrote Martin Chuzzlewit after a highly
successful tour of the United States - his derisive satire of American
boosterism is extremely funny, but was viewed by many of his American
readers as an outrageous betrayal.
The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas
Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge,
A Christmas Carol, Dombey and Son, David
Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard Times, Litte
Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations,
Our Mutual Friend and The Mystery of Edwin Drood are
also published in the Penguin English Library.
