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Our Mutual Friend

Charles Dickens

Book Overview: 

Our Mutual Friend begins with an intriguing fortune offered to John Harmon by his late father, a rich dust contractor, in his will.

To receive the money, John must marry a certain Bella Wilfer who he does not know from Eve. He is returning from the exile enforced by his father and confides in a ship’s mate who attempts to murder him. The mate gets killed instead, leaving one inconvenient corpse. Because John is considered dead (the body is found with his papers), the money passes to Mr Boffin, old Harmon’s foreman. Harmon adopts Bella and John comes into his employ disguised as John Rokesmith. Bella does not fall for John but through kindly Boffin’s contrivances learns to hate money and fall for her suitor under his false name. Eventually she learns of his true identity as the Boffins had previously, and the villainous one-legged Silas Wegg’s plot to blackmail Mr Boffin is brought to light.

There is also a story running behind the main plot about a certain Eugene Wrayburn and his love for Lizzie Hexam, and his rival’s attempt to murder him. The two plots are only really connected through the waterside murders but it allows Dickens to indulge in an extremely socially diverse cast of characters.

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Book Excerpt: 
. . . present reporting, but that two heads were better than one (especially when the second was Mr Inspector's); and that the reporter meant to share the watch. And forasmuch as crouching under the lee of a hauled-up boat on a night when it blew cold and strong, and when the weather was varied with blasts of hail at times, might be wearisome to amateurs, the reporter closed with the recommendation that the two gentlemen should remain, for a while at any rate, in their present quarters, which were weather-tight and warm.

They were not inclined to dispute this recommendation, but they wanted to know where they could join the watchers when so disposed. Rather than trust to a verbal description of the place, which might mislead, Eugene (with a less weighty sense of personal trouble on him than he usually had) would go out with Mr Inspector, note the spot, and come back.

On the shelving bank of the river, among the slimy stones of a causeway—not the spe. . . Read More

Community Reviews

In completing Our Mutual Friend, I believe that I may well have just finished reading the finest book written in the English language. One could perhaps argue that the prose of Austen in her novel Emma is more perfect; but the plotting and characters of Dickens in Our Mutual Friend is exquisite. Our

This isn't my favourite Dickens book, but I did grow to like it more and more as it continued. I particularly enjoyed the narrative of Betty Higden and her wards Johnny and Sloppy. Such a warming subplot!

John Harmon is found dead in the polluted Thames River one of many but wait a minute, since he's the main character of the book, this would be a very short novel (it is 800 pages long !). Don't worry ladies and gentlemen of course not really him, the body identified as John and thought to be a murde

Dickens's last finished novel featuring the tale of John Harmon's (after his supposed murder) search for love. Combining many of the themes he has previously featured, this is one of Dickens most complex novels, but I found that ii wasn't that compelling a read, from the viewpoint of someone who has

As amazing as ever. I love this book so much.

Although not quite the equal of those great late works Bleak House and Little Dorrit, this last completed novel of Charles Dickens has much to recommend it. It is particularly memorable for its symbolism, the way it uses a series of "dust mounds" (huge heterogeneous piles of waste, primarily of cind

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