Martin Chuzzlewit: Charles Dickens

With an Introduction and Notes by Dr John Bowen, Department of English, University of Keele.
Illustrations by Hablot K. Browne (Phiz).
Martin Chuzzlewit is Charles Dickens` comic masterpiece about which his biographer, Forster, noted that it marked a crucial phase in the author`s development as he began to delve deeper into the `springs of character`.
Old Martin Chuzzlewit, tormented by the greed and selfishness of his family, effectively drives his grandson, young Martin, to undertake a voyage to America. It is a voyage which will have crucial consequences not only for young Martin, but also for his grandfather and his grandfather`s servant, Mary Graham with whom young Martin is in love. The commercial swindle of the Anglo-Bengalee company and the fraudulent Eden Land Corporation have a topicality in our own time.
This strong sub-plot shows evidence of Dickens` mastery of crime where characters such as the criminal Jonas Chuzzlewit, the old nurse Mrs Gamp, and the arch-hypocrite Seth Pecksniff are the equal to any in his other great novels. Generations of readers have also delighted in Dickens` wonderful description of the London boarding-house - `Todgers`.