Barnaby Rudge

by Charles Dickens, Gordon W. Spence (Introduction), Gordon W. Spence (Noted by), John Bowen (Editor), John Bowen (Introduction)

Overview

The title character of Barnaby Rudge, a feeble minded individual, is a passive actor who is swept along by events. Based on Gordon Riots of June 1780, the riots reach a climax in the storming and destruction of the Newgate Prison. This work is famous for its descriptions of mob violence which shows Dickens' descriptive abilities. First published in 1841.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780140437287
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/15/2003
Series:	Penguin Classics Series
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	768
Sales rank:	77,804
Product dimensions:	5.11(w) x 7.74(h) x 1.45(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsea, England. He died in Kent on June 9, 1870. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know not only hunger and privation,but also the horror of the infamous debtors’ prison and the evils of child labor. A turn of fortune in the shape of a legacy brought release from the nightmare of prison and “slave” factories and afforded Dickens the opportunity of two years’ formal schooling at Wellington House Academy. He worked as an attorney’s clerk and newspaper reporter until his Sketches by Boz (1836) and The Pickwick Papers (1837) brought him the amazing and instant success that was to be his for the remainder of his life. In later years, the pressure of serial writing, editorial duties, lectures, and social commitments led to his separation from Catherine Hogarth after twenty-three years of marriage. It also hastened his death at the age of fifty-eight, when he was characteristically engaged in a multitude of work.

John Bowen teaches English at the University of Keele. He has written widely on Charles Dickens and is the author of Other Dickens: Pickwick to Dombey (OUP, 2000).

Date of Birth:

February 7, 1812

Date of Death:

June 18, 1870

Place of Birth:

Portsmouth, England

Place of Death:

Gad's Hill, Kent, England

Education:

Home-schooling; attended Dame School at Chatham briefly and Wellington

Editorial Reviews

"One of Dickens' most neglected, but most rewarding, novels."  —Peter Ackroyd, author, London: The Biography

"I would always prefer to go get another Dickens off the shelf than pick up a new book by someone I've not read yet."  —Donna Tartt, author, The Little Friend

From the Publisher