You may have seen that Yvette Prior and I are running a small Little Dorrit challenge. The challenge runs from today, June 9 (Dickens passed away on June 9, 1870) and will run until Sunday, June 13. You can join by writing a post about the book and linking to any of mine or Yvette’s posts about it. Your posts can be about anything at all – what you though of the book, a review, talking about the writing style, about the characters, about humor, about satire, about what you liked, about what you hated or anything else that comes to mind.
This post is to get things started with a few facts about the book.
Little Dorrit was originally published in serial form between 1855 and 1857. The story is set in London in 1826 and features Amy Dorrit, aka “Little Dorrit”, the youngest child of her family, born and raised in the Marshalsea prison for debtors in London, the same place where Dickens’ father was imprisoned in real life. Arthur Clennam encounters her after returning home from a 20-year absence, ready to begin his life anew. (paraphrased from Wikipedia) In many ways Arthur is the real “main character”, not Little Dorrit, but she is the center of attention.
Dickens was always a crusader for social justice, but in ways Little Dorrit was his largest, most personal attack in that direction. It is a great critique of (at that time) Britain’s lack of a safety net for its citizens. It went on to be a great satire about class and class relations, the stratification of society, government bureaucracy (the “Circumlocution Office” was created to show How Not to Do It – i.e., how to prevent anything from being accomplished), treatment of industrial workers (medieval peasants had much, much better lives that Victorian industrial workers) and pretty much everything that he saw wrong with society of the mid-19th century. Imprisonment, both literal (the first chapter is in a prison, and much action is in the debtors prison, Marshalsea) and figurative, are major themes with almost every character being held in the prison by England’s rigid and strict social structure.
A side note about that last sentence – I was shocked when I read Oliver Twist that at the end Oliver’s aunt marries a very rich man, an ultra-successful barrister and a member of the House of Lords, but he is forced to give up literally everything to marry a woman whose sister had a child, Oliver, out of wedlock. What?!? And Dickens doesn’t make a big deal about it, except to show how strong their love is… There are class divides in Little Dorrit that artificially force people apart, but this time Dickens does take aim at these stupid cultural divides.
If you haven’t looked, this is a big book! It is very long and often long-winded. There are many subplots, and in typical Dickens fashion, all of the main plots and subplots are intertwined. And, as is typical with Dickens, except for the handful of main characters, all of the characters are almost caricatures and you can guess everything about them just by name alone, such as Tite Barnacle, nephew of Lord Decimus Barnacle and senior official in the Circumlocution Office.
The main characters, though, are well drawn and rounded characters.
Do you love Dickens? Does this sound interesting? This is an invitation to join! Everyone who posts and links to one of mine or Yvette’s posts about Little Dorrit will be put in a draw for an Amazon gift card.
I plan on doing a post about my thoughts towards the end of the challenge.
Previous Posts in the Dickens Little Dorrit Challenge
My first Challenge page
Recent Reminder
Final Thoughts on Little Dorrit
Trent's World (the Blog) 
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Hi Trent – here is the link to my final post for the Dickens Challenge:
talk to you soon
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Great! I will put up my final post before noon today – I decided to finish the book yesterday… ;)
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congrats for finishing the book T! right on!
i have to admit that after we checked in last week about it – i felt all energized to tackle my reading of it! can’t wait to read your post!
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Nothing like last minute panic to get motivated ;) seriously, once I got moving and reading consistently, I enjoyed reading it and am glad I took the time to finish :)
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oh that is so good to hear.
;)
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Pingback: Little Dorrit Recap (#DickensChallenge 2021) – priorhouse blog
not my favourite Dickens, if I’m honest… gets a bit bogged down what with those in prison and out, making and losing fortunes and goodness knows how many lucky inheritances. I think that is the problem with his serial novels; they ramble! So good luck with this!! Why did you chose Dorrit btw?
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I can’t say I disagree….
Back in late January or early February, I had put out a book that, though in modern times had flashbacks to the early 19th century. Yvette Prior said one of the quotes from the book reminder her of a BBC miniseries of Little Dorrit. She really liked the show, but didn’t care for Little Dorrit herself and wondered if it was the actress, something about the miniseries or if she would feel the same reading the book. On thing lead to another, and here we are, with the Little Dorrit Challenge…
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Pingback: Little Dorrit Summer Excerpts (#DickensChallenge Ends June 13th, 2021) – priorhouse blog
Pingback: Little Dorrit Summer Excerpts (#DickensChallenge Ends June 13th, 2021) – priorhouse blog
Hi – I enjoyed your post and have mine almost ready to go live
:)
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Forty-eight years ago I took a course in college on the writings of Dickens and I’ve been a fan ever since. I’ve read all of his novels, some of them more than once.
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I’ll admit that I have only read a few, but I did read Oliver Twist twice. I spend less time reading than I did back then, but some day I want to read more his “big name” works – he has quite a few!
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This sounds like an interesting read. I may check it out (I assume it’s on Project Gutenberg) someday. I’ve never read anything by Dickens.
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It is on Project Gutenberg and Yvette has links to it there. This may be a difficult intro to Dickens, but you may enjoy it :)
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Hi – here is the link to the ebook
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/963/963-h/963-h.htm
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I do love Dickens, and I’ve read “Little Dorrit” but not very recently. It makes me think I will need to do some rereading if I post on it, but I will think about it. :)
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If you get a chance, join in :) Of course I don’t expect you to read the entire book in the next four days… it is long…
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Yes … I remember. :P :) Many of his books seem to be but are worth reading.
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Sometimes the length make them a little difficult to wade through, but they are worth it.
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I could perhaps also rewatch the drama.
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Susan, that is a good idea :) the drama of it is good
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:)
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That is where this started, with Yvette talking about the BBC mini-series.
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