The novel's range ofcharacters - the honest, the crooked, the selfish and the self-denying - offers a portrait of a society about whose values Dickens had profound doubts.Little Dorrit is indisputably one of Dickens' finest works,written at the height of his powers.

Little Dorrit is a classic tale of imprisonment, both literal and metaphorical, while Dickens' working title for the novel, Nobodys Fault, highlights its concern with personal responsibility in private and public life. Dickens'childhood experiences inform the vid scenes in Marshalsea debtor's prison, while his adult perceptions of governmental failures shape his satirical picture of the Circumlocution Office. The novel's range ofcharacters - the honest, the crooked, the selfish and the self-denying - offers a portrait of a society about whose values Dickens had profound doubts.

Little Dorrit is indisputably one of Dickens' finest works,written at the height of his powers. George BernardShaw called it 'a masterpiece among masterpieces', averdict shared by the novel's many admirers.

PREFACE

BOOK THE FIRST

Poverty

1 Sun and Shadow

2 Fellow-Travellers

3 Home

4 Mrs Flintwincb has a Dream

5 FamilyAffairs

6 The Father of the Marsbalsea

7 The Child of the Marsbalsea

8 The Lock

9 Little Mother

10 Containing the Whole Science of Government

11 Let Loose

12 Bleeding-Heart Yard

13 Patriarchal

14 Little Dorrit's Party

15 Mrs Flintwincb has Another Dream

16 Nobody's Weakness

17 Nobody's RⅣal

18 Little Dorrit's Lover

19 The Father of the Marsbalsea in Two or Three Relations

21 Mr Merdle's Complaint

22 A Puzzle

23 Machinery in Motion

24 Fortune-Telling

25 Conspirators and Others

26 Nobody's State of Mind

27 Five-and-Twenty

28 Nobody's Disappearance

29 Mrs Flintwinch Goes on Dreaming

30 The Word of a Gentleman

31 Spirit

32 More Fortune-Telling

33 Mrs Merdle's Complaint

34 A Shoal of Barnacles

35 What was behind Mr Pancks on Little Dorrit's Hand

36 The Marshalsea Becomes an Orphan

BOOK THE SECOND

Riches

1 Fellow-Travellers

2 Mrs General

3 On the Road

4 A Letter from Little Dorrit

5 Something Wrong Somewhere

6 Something Right Somewhere

7 Mostly Prunes and Prism

8 The Dowager Mrs Gowan is Reminded that it Never Does

9 Appearance and Disappearance

10 The Dreams of Mrs Flintwinch Thicken

11 A Letter from Little Dorrit

12 In which a Great Patriotic Conference is Holden

13 The Progress of an Epidemic

14 Taking Advice

15 No Just Cause or Impediment Why these Two Persons should not be Joined Together

16 Getting On

17 Missing

18 A Castle in the Air

19 The Storming of the Castle in the Air

20 Introduces the Next

21 The History of a Self-Tormentor

22 Who Passes by this Road so Late？

23 Mistress Affery Makes a Conditional Promise Respecting her Dreams

24 The Evening of a Long Day

25 The Chief Butler Resigns the Seals of Office

26 Reaping the Whirlwind

27 The Pupil of the Marshalsea

28 An Appearance in the Marshalsea

29 A Plea in the Marshalsea

30 Closing In

31 Closed

32 Going

33 Going！

34 Gone

EXPLANATORY NOTES