| |
More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
|
Little Dorritt
|
|
|
(1857)
Novel by *Dickens, published in monthly parts from December 1855. William Dorritt is 'father of the *Marshalsea', where he has lived for many years as a debtor; his youngest daughter, little Amy Dorritt, was even born in the prison. The hero is the middle-aged Arthur Clennam, who tries to help the family and with whom Little Dorritt falls in love. Like Amy's father, Clennam becomes hopelessly entangled in the obstructive bureaucracy of the Circumlocution Office – Dickens's bitter satire on a government department, from the period when the term *red tape entered the language.
|
|
|
|
|
Dorritt is found to be heir to a fortune and leaves the Marshalsea; meanwhile Clennam, victim of a fraud, loses all his money and enters the prison, where he is visited and comforted by Little Dorritt (now rich, but the only one of her family not to be spoilt by wealth). Finally the Dorritt fortune is lost again, making it possible for the impoverished Clennam to ask Amy to marry him. Among the many minor characters is the very precise governess, Mrs General, who recommends the words 'papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism' for giving a pretty shape to the lips, but 'especially prunes and prism'.
|
|
|
|