CHAPTER 3 – Home
It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close, and stale. Maddening church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked and clear, fast and slow, made the brick-and-mortar echoes hideous. Melancholy streets, in … Read the rest
CHAPTER 2 – Fellow Travellers
‘NO MORE OF YESTERDAY’S howling over yonder to-day, Sir; is there?’
‘I have heard none.’
‘Then you may be sure there is none. When these people howl, they howl to be heard.’
‘Most people do, … Read the rest
CHAPTER 1 – Sun and Shadow
THIRTY YEARS AGO, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day.
A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in southern France then, than at any other time, before or … Read the rest
PREFACE TO THE 1857 EDITION
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 … Read the rest
CHAPTER 8 – The Lock
Arthur Clennam stood in the street, waiting to ask some passer-by what place that was. He suffered a few people to pass him in whose face there was no encouragement to make the inquiry, and … Read the rest
CHAPTER 7 – The Child of the Marshalsea
The baby whose first draught of air had been tinctured with Doctor Haggage’s brandy, was handed down among the generations of collegians, like the tradition of their common parent. In the earlier … Read the rest
CHAPTER 6 – The Father of the Marshalsea
Thirty years ago there stood, a few doors short of the church of Saint George, in the borough of Southwark, on the left-hand side of the way going southward, the Marshalsea Prison. … Read the rest
CHAPTER 5 – Family Affairs
As the city clocks struck nine on Monday morning, Mrs Clennam was wheeled by Jeremiah Flintwinch of the cut-down aspect to her tall cabinet. When she had unlocked and opened it, and had settled herself … Read the rest
CHAPTER 4 – Mrs Flintwinch has a Dream
When Mrs Flintwinch dreamed, she usually dreamed, unlike the son of her old mistress, with her eyes shut. She had a curiously vivid dream that night, and before she had left the … Read the rest