Physical description

Barnaby Rudge.
Author: Charles Dickens.
Publisher: Collins, Clear Type Press (London & Glasgow)
Date: Mid 20th Century. (See note section this document for more information on Edition).
Red leather hardcover with title on front on paper with a dark red spine and lettering in gold. The spine has a Library label.

Publication type

fiction

Inscriptions & markings

The label on the spine with typed text PAT 823.8 DIC
Paste down front end paper has a sticker from Warrnambool Public Library covered by a sticker from Corangamite Regional Library Service
Front loose end paper has a stamp from Corangamite Regional Library Service

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.