Charles Dickens

Little Dorrit Charles Dickens

He begins in a Marseilles prison, where he meets the murderer Rigaud, who brags to his cellmate that he has killed his rich wife. A group of Englishmen disembark in the same city, including the novel's protagonist, Arthur Clennam, who returns to London after having spent the last twenty years in China trading, without having made a great fortune, together with his father, who has died recently. In London, Dickens introduces us to William Dorrit, a former gentleman who has spent so long in the Marshalsea debtors' prison that his children - the snobbish Fanny, the lazy Edward (aka Tip) and the self-sacrificing Amy (known by the nickname " Little Dorrit ") - have grown up within its walls, although, unlike their father, they can be released from prison at will. Returning to London, Arthur visits his mother, Mrs. Clennam, an invalid woman with rigid Protestant customs. She lives a peculiar and tense relationship with her butler, Jeremiah Flintwinch, who believes he can make her what he wants, and in fact manages to name him a partner in the Clennam family company, now that Arthur has left her. At his mother's house, Arthur meets little Dorrit, who works there as Mrs. Clennam's companion to earn a living from her.