Home Barnaby Rudge: Introduction by Peter Ackroyd by Charles Dickens; Introduction by Peter Ackroyd (ISBN: 9780307262905)

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Barnaby Rudge: Introduction by Peter Ackroyd Hardcover - 2005

Name: Barnaby Rudge (Everyman&#39;s Library)
Price: 17.00 USD
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Author: Dickens, Charles; Ackroyd, Peter [Introduction]
ISBN: 9780307262905

by Charles Dickens; Introduction by Peter Ackroyd

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About this book

Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty, commonly known as Barnaby Rudge, is an historical novel by the author Charles Dickens. Barnaby Rudge was one of two novels that Dickens published in his short-lived weekly serial Master Humphrey's Clock, which lasted from 1840 to 1841, when the book was published. It was Dickens' first attempt at an historical novel, his only other being A Tale of Two Cities.

Summary

Set against the backdrop of the Gordon Riots of 1780, Barnaby Rudge is a story of mystery and suspense which begins with an unsolved double murder and goes on to involve conspiracy, blackmail, abduction and retribution. Through the course of the novel fathers and sons become opposed, apprentices plot against their masters and Protestants clash with Catholics on the streets. And, as London erupts into riot, Barnaby Rudge himself struggles to escape the curse of his own past. With its dramatic descriptions of public violence and private horror, its strange secrets and ghostly doublings, Barnaby Rudge is a powerful, disturbing blend of historical realism and Gothic melodrama.

From the publisher

Charles Dickens's first historical novel-set during the anti-Catholic riots of 1780-is an unparalleled portrayal of the terror of a rampaging mob, seen through the eyes of the individuals swept up in the chaos.

Those individuals include Emma, a Catholic, and Edward, a Protestant, whose forbidden love weaves through the heart of the story; and the simpleminded Barnaby, one of the riot leaders, whose fate is tied to a mysterious murder and whose beloved pet raven, Grip, embodies the mystical power of innocence. The story encompasses both the rarified aristocratic world and the volatile streets and nightmarish underbelly of London, which Dickens characteristically portrays in vivid, pulsating detail. But the real focus of the book is on the riots themselves, depicted with an extraordinary energy and redolent of the dangers, the mindlessness, and the possibilities-both beneficial and brutal-of the mob.

One of the lesser-known novels, Barnaby Rudge is nonetheless among the most brilliant-and most terrifying-in Dickens's oeuvre.

First line

IN THE YEAR 1775, there stood upon the borders of Epping Forest, at a distance of about twelve miles from London - measuring from the Standard in Cornhill, or rather from the spot on or near to which the Standard used to be in days of yore - a house of pub

First Edition Identification

Barnaby Rudge was first serialized in 1840–1841. It was then published in novel form in 1841, published by Chapman & Hall, London.

Details

Title Barnaby Rudge: Introduction by Peter Ackroyd
Author Charles Dickens; Introduction by Peter Ackroyd
Binding Hardcover
Edition Illustrated.
Pages 920
Volumes 1
Language ENG
Publisher Everyman's Library
Date November 8, 2005
Illustrated Yes
ISBN 9780307262905 / 0307262901
Weight 1.88 lbs (0.85 kg)
Dimensions 8.32 x 5.32 x 1.72 in (21.13 x 13.51 x 4.37 cm)
Library of Congress subjects Mystery fiction, Historical fiction
Library of Congress Catalog Number 2006540271
Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Media reviews

Citations

Library Journal, 01/15/2006, Page 0

About the author

Charles Dickens was born in a little house in Landport, Portsea, England, on February 7, 1812. The second of eight children, he grew up in a family frequently beset by financial insecurity. At age eleven, Dickens was taken out of school and sent to work in London backing warehouse, where his job was to paste labels on bottles for six shillings a week. His father John Dickens, was a warmhearted but improvident man. When he was condemned the Marshela Prison for unpaid debts, he unwisely agreed that Charles should stay in lodgings and continue working while the rest of the family joined him in jail. This three-month separation caused Charles much pain; his experiences as a child alone in a huge city-cold, isolated with barely enough to eat-haunted him for the rest of his life. When the family fortunes improved, Charles went back to school, after which he became an office boy, a freelance reporter and finally an author. With Pickwick Papers (1836-7) he achieved immediate fame; in a few years he was easily the post popular and respected writer of his time. It has been estimated that one out of every ten persons in Victorian England was a Dickens reader. Oliver Twist (1837), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-9) and The Old Curiosity Shop(1840-41) were huge successes. Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4) was less so, but Dickens followed it with his unforgettable, A Christmas Carol (1843), Bleak House (1852-3), Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit(1855-7)reveal his deepening concern for the injustices of British Society. A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-1) and Our Mutual Friend (1864-5) complete his major works. Dickens's marriage to Catherine Hoggarth produced ten children but ended in separation in 1858. In that year he began a series of exhausting public readings; his health gradually declined. After putting in a full day's work at his home at Gads Hill, Kent on June 8, 1870, Dickens suffered a stroke, and he died the following day.