Dombey and Son

Resumen del libro

'"Dombey and Son" ... Those three words conveyed the one idea of Mr Dombey's life. The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, the sun and moon were made to give them light. Rivers and seas were formed to float their ships'

To Paul Dombey, business is everything. He runs his domestic affairs as he runs his firm: coldly, calculatingly and commercially, neglecting his two wives and his daughter Florence. In Dombey's mercantile terms, she is 'merely a base coin that couldn't be invested'. Through this portrayal of a dysfunctional family, where hearts have no market value, Dickens creates a broader picture of a society that places profit above compassion. He also explores the possibility of redemption through familial love, for it is Dombey's relationship with Florence, his emotional deprivation and eventual fulfillment that form the heart of the book. Despite its world of bustling commerce, roaring streets and railways, Dombey and Son is in many ways 'Dickens's most domestic novel'.

This volume uses the text of Dickens's first edition of 1848.

with an introduction, suggestions for further reading, Dickens chronology, full explanatory notes, original illustrations by 'Phiz', appendices on illustrations and serialization

Edited by Andrew Sanders

Biografía del autor

Charles Dickens (Portsmuth, 1812 Gadshill, 1870) ha llegado hasta nosotros como el autor más importante e influyente de la literatura victoriana. Sus obras y su peripecia personal, íntimamente relacionadas, plasmaron no sólo el pulso social de su época, también el terrible estado moral de una sociedad atrapada en la desigualdad y las convenciones. Dickens experimentó la miseria, el éxito popular, la cárcel, el hambre... sólo logró cumplir con el más íntimo de sus anhelos, la libertad, entregándose a la literatura. Aunque muchas de sus obras gozaron de un extraordinario favor popular, baste decir que muchas de ellas fueron publicadas por entregas, en formato folletín; serían las críticas entusiastas de George Gissing y G. K. Chesterton las que encumbrarían a Dickens como el autor más importante de la literatura inglesa del siglo XIX.