Our Mutual Friend, Dickens's last completed novel (1864-65), sets a murder mystery and a courtship plot amid London's river margins and the lucrative dust-heaps. When a body from the Thames is taken for John Harmon, an unseen heir, disguises, mistaken identities, and social rehearsals entangle the Boffins, Bella Wilfer, Lizzie Hexam, Eugene Wrayburn, and the obsessive Bradley Headstone. Composed for serial publication, it fuses caustic satire, grotesque comedy, and lyrical river imagery to probe money's corruption, precarious mobility, and the ecology of refuse sustaining Victorian prosperity. By the mid-1860s Dickens was a veteran editor of All the Year Round and a tireless observer of London's labor, waste, and waterways. Personal upheaval-separation from Catherine and a life of theatrical readings-honed his interest in masks and secrecy. His survival of the 1865 Staplehurst rail crash during serialization sharpened themes of contingency and rescue, while dust contractors and speculative fortunes offered material fact. Out of journalism and trauma he forged a panoramic fable of value sifted from urban detritus. Readers drawn to Victorian fiction, environmental humanities, or the history of capitalism will find this novel demanding yet exhilarating: a darkly comic, intricately patterned study of desire, wealth, and the mutable identities money makes. Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the author's voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readable-distilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Author Biography · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.

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Charles Dickens (1812-1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His famous works include A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities.