Book description
'The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and
moon were made to give them light'
Dombey and Son is both a firm and a family and the ambiguous
connection between public and private life lies at the heart of
Dickens' novel. Paul Dombey is a man who runs his domestic affairs as
he runs his business: calculatingly, callously, coldly and
commercially. Through his dysfunctional relationships with his son,
his two wives, and his neglected daughter Florence, Dickens paints a
vivid picture of the limitations of a society dominated by commercial
values and the drive for profit and explores the possibility of moral
and emotional redemption through familial love.
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, by turns cajoling, moving and irritating. He completed
fourteen full-length novels and volume after volume of journalism.
According to George Gissing, the astonishingly prolific Dickens wrote
Dombey and Son alongside various other both literary and
artistic projects, and in many different locations; it 'was begun at
Lausanne, continued at Paris, completed in London, and at English
seaside places'.
The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas
Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge,
A Christmas Carol, Martin Chuzzlewit, David
Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard Times, Little
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.
