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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Barely any
A murder; spontaneous combustion; some social violence
Language
None
No profanity; Victorian prose
Sexual Content
Barely any
Brief romantic entanglements
Substance Use
None
Opium use in a character's backstory
Emotional Intensity
Some
The psychological weight of a society's indifference to suffering is a sustained theme
What this book is about
Dickens's longest and arguably greatest novel uses the interminable Chancery court case of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce as its organizing metaphor for a social system that grinds down the poor and rewards the corrupt. The dual narrators — the omniscient satirist and the warm, observant Esther Summerson — survey a panoramic cast of Victorian English society.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
A murder mystery subplot
The famous spontaneous combustion scene
Sustained critique of institutional cruelty
Reader Verification
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