Barnaby Rudge - Couverture souple

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Dickens, Charles

 
9780192840561: Barnaby Rudge

Synopsis

'What dark history is this?' This is the question that hangs over Dickens's brooding novel of mayhem and murder in the eighteenth century. Set in London at the time of the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots, Barnaby Rudge tells a story of individuals caught up in the mindless violence of the mob. Lord George Gordon's dangerous appeal to old religious prejudices is interwoven with the murder mystery surrounding the father of the simple-minded Barnaby. The discovery of the murderer and his involvement in the riots put Barnaby's life in jeopardy. Culminating in the terrifying destruction of Newgate prison by the rampaging hordes, the descriptions of the riots are among Dickens's most powerful. Written at a time of social unrest in Victorian Britain, Barnaby Rudge explores the relationship between repression and liberation in private and public life. It looks forward to the dark complexities of Dickens's later novels, whose characters also seek refuge from a chaotic and unstable world.

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Revue de presse

The long hours put in by this household's squad of Santa's elves raced by as we listened, high-Victorian style, to Sean Barrett giving the performance of his audio career as the narrator of Charles Dickens's Barnaby Rudge. I can't recommend it highly enough. Dickens is brilliant heard aloud and the book, written in short instalments, lends itself well to being your own book at bedtime or your reading during your daily commute. Set during the anti-Roman Catholic Gordon riots in London during the 1780s, it has an utterly loveable simpleton hero and three of the best villains known to literature: the smooth and cynical Sir John Chester, the devil-may-care and unhinged inn-servant Hugh, and Dennis, the whimsical hangman. Add the heart-of-oak Gabriel Vardon and his disastrously flirtatious daughter Dolly, plus a Romeo and Juliet love affair between the Anglican son and the Catholic daughter of sworn enemies, and the mid is as rich and unexpected as a good plum pud. --Christina Hardyment, The Times

Présentation de l'éditeur

Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty (commonly known as Barnaby Rudge) is a historical novel by British novelist Charles Dickens. Barnaby Rudge was one of two novels (the other was The Old Curiosity Shop) that Dickens published in his short-lived (1840–1841) weekly serial Master Humphrey's Clock. Barnaby Rudge is largely set during the Gordon Riots of 1780. Barnaby Rudge was the fifth of Dickens' novels to be published. It had originally been planned to appear as his first, but changes of publisher led to many delays, and it first appeared in serial form in the Clock from February to November 1841. It was Dickens' first historical novel. His only other is the much later A Tale of Two Cities, also set in revolutionary times. It is one of his less popular novels and has rarely been adapted for film or television. The last production was a 1960 BBC production; prior to that, silent films were made in 1911 and 1915.

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