Physical description

Barnaby Rudge
Author: Charles Dickens
Publisher: Chapman & Hall Ltd
Date: Household Edition (1871–1879) (See note section this document for more information on Edition). Green cloth hardcover with a black spine with authors name signed on front cover, lettering in gold. The spine has a Library label.
First Published as part of the weekly Master Humphrey's Clock series (1840-1841)

Publication type

fiction

Inscriptions & markings

The label on the spine cover with typed text PAT 823.8 DIC
Front loose end paper has a stamp from Corangamite Regional Library Service.
Front loose end paper has a stamp from Warrnambool Mechanics Institute.
Paste down front-end paper has a sticker from Warrnambool Mechanics Institute and Free Library.

Summary

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was one of the great English novelists of the Victorian era, famous for vivid characters, social criticism, and stories that were first published in serial form. He began as a journalist, rose to enormous popularity during his lifetime, and wrote major works such as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations.
Barnaby Rudge is a historical Dickens novel set against the Gordon Riots of 1780, mixing mystery, political unrest, family secrets, and the story of a simple minded young man, Barnaby, and his pet raven Grip. It is considered Dickens’s first historical novel and one of his less widely read works, but it remains important for its treatment of mob violence and social disorder.
The novel begins with a murder mystery linked to the Haredale and Rudge families, then broadens into the chaos of the anti Catholic Gordon Riots in London. Barnaby, an innocent and impressionable character, is drawn into the riotous crowd. Other threads involve love, family conflict, imprisonment, and eventual reckoning. Dickens uses the riot setting to show how crowd panic and prejudice can spread destructively through society.