Other editions of book Little Dorrit

About Little Dorrit by Charles DickensHow is this book unique?E-reader & tablet formatted, Font Adjustments100% Original contentUnabridged EditionAuthor Biography InsideIllustrations includedLittle Dorrit is a novel by Charles Dickens, originally published in serial form between 1855 and 1857. It satirizes the shortcomings of both government and society, including the institution of debtors' prisons, where debtors were imprisoned, unable to work, until they repaid their debts. The prison in this case is the Marshalsea, where Dickens's own father had been imprisoned. Dickens is also critical of the lack of a social safety net, the treatment and safety of industrial workers, as well the bureaucracy of the British Treasury, in the form of his fictional "Circumlocution Office". In addition he satirizes the stratification of society that results from the British class system.

"I have been occupied with this story; during many working hours of two years. I must have been very ill employed; if I could not leave its merits and demerits as a whole; to express themselves on its being read as a whole. But; as it is not unreasonable to suppose that I may have held its threads with a more continuous attention than anyone else can have given them during its desultory publication; it is not unreasonable to ask that the weaving may be looked at in its completed state; and with the pattern finished." -Preface by the author