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Dickens' tale of private lives and public events takes place in the seething unrest of 1780's London. This is a fictional recreation of the historical facts of the Gordon riots.
In 1824, young Charles was withdrawn from school and forced to work at a boot-blacking factory when his improvident father, accompanied by his mother and siblings, was sentenced to three months in a debtor's prison. Once they were released, Charles attended a private school for three years. The young man then became a solicitor's clerk, mastered shorthand, and before long was employed as a Parliamentary reporter. When he was in his early twenties, Dickens began to publish stories and sketches of London life in a variety of periodicals.
It was the publication of Pickwick Papers (1836-1837) that catapulted the twenty-five-year-old author to national renown. Dickens wrote with unequaled speed and often worked on several novels at a time, publishing them first in monthly installments and then as books. His early novels Oliver Twist (1837-1838), Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841), and A Christmas Carol (1843) solidified his enormous, ongoing popularity. As Dickens matured, his social criticism became increasingly biting, his humor dark, and his view of poverty darker still. David Copperfield (1849-1850), Bleak House (1852-1853), Hard Times (1854), A Tale of Two Cities (1859), Great Expectations (1860-1861), and Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865) are the great works of his masterful and prolific period.
In 1858 Dickens's twenty-three-year marriage to Catherine Hogarth dissolved when he fell in love with Ellen Ternan, a young actress. The last years of his life were filled with intense activity: writing, managing amateur theatricals, and undertaking several reading tours that reinforced the public's favorable view of his work but took an enormous toll on his health. Working feverishly to the last, Dickens collapsed and died on June 8, 1870, leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood uncompleted.
Author biography from the Barnes & Noble Classics edition of David Copperfield.
| Acknowledgements | vi | |
| Introduction | vii | |
| Note on the Text | xxv | |
| Note on the Illustrations | xxvi | |
| Select Bibliography | xxx | |
| A Chronology of Charles Dickens | xxxv | |
| Map: London at the time of the Gordon Riots, 1780 | xlviii | |
| Preface 1841 | 3 | |
| Preface 1849 | 5 | |
| Barnaby Rudge | 9 | |
| Appendix A | The Gordon Riots | 662 |
| Appendix B | Historical Sources and Contemporary Contexts | 667 |
| Appendix C | Dickens and Scott | 673 |
| Explanatory Notes | 677 |
I had read most of the Dickens novels, some more than once, but I'd always overlooked Barnaby Rudge. When I finally read it I was amazed it had taken me so long. It even turned out to be a lot more fun than I expected. Like all Dickens' novels, the characters are drawn to show the nature of human beings, and he does it so well, the characters could be set in modern day and the story would still work. We see the shifty lecherous rogue who covets the beautiful young lady, the dedicated hangman, and the patriotic family man. We see troubled family relationships: mother and son, father and daughter, and father and son. Most important of all, we see the title character, a golden-hearted idiot whose simple-minded exuberance makes him a ready-made pawn for the devious and evil manipulators who stand to profit from division and resentment between Catholics and Protestants. Perhaps the most timeless thing about this novel is the willful manufacturing of resentment between the two primary social political groups of the time. You could simply replace the terms Catholic and Protestant with Liberal and Conservative and you'd be telling our modern story. Turn on the nightly news and you will see a modern-day Barnaby Rudge there enthusiastically reciting the talking points of some divisive talk-show host, all the while completely oblivious that he is but a pawn dutifully serving a sinister master. I'm glad I waited until now to read this tale of Dickens because it's such a timely reminder of human impulse toward the mob mentality. Barnaby Rudge is an ever present reminder that if we lose our ability to think to think critically, we our own identity and our values will be consumed to serve the desires of someone else.
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Posted September 9, 2011
one of Dickens' lesser known stories, its historical accuracies are illuminating of the time period
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![Barnaby Rudge [Illustrated]](http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/119030000/119032838.GIF)
Overview
Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Gordon W. Spence.Dickens' tale of private lives and public events takes place in the seething unrest of 1780's London. This is a fictional recreation of the historical facts of the Gordon riots.