Old Martin Chuzzlewit has a great deal of money and has found nothing but misery in it. Estranged from his grandson and namesake, he falls ill, and a crowd of relatives he despises gathers around him, each hoping to inherit a slice of the pie. Among them are the hypocritical Pecksniff, with his pious phrases and his two daughters, and the grasping Jonas, whose ambitions grow darker by the chapter. Young Martin, thrown out by his grandfather, goes to America in search of fortune and finds a country as full of fraud and bluster as the one he left. Charles Dickens wrote this satire on selfishness with relish, creating some of his most unforgettable comic figures. Seventy-six sections, read by one volunteer, fill more than thirty-three hours. It is a big, funny and sharp-edged novel for a long season of listening.
Introduction
Charles Dickens, who lived from 1812 to 1870, was the best-known English novelist of the Victorian period. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit appeared in monthly parts in 1843 and 1844, and Dickens himself regarded selfishness as its central theme. The book includes his reactions to a trip to the United States, which he had made in 1842, and its American chapters were controversial with readers at the time.
The novel is a satire, and many of its characters are among the great comic creations of English fiction. Mr Pecksniff, with his smooth talk of virtue, has become a byword for hypocrisy, while Mrs Gamp, the garrulous nurse, steals every scene in which she appears. Beneath the humour lies a serious study of how greed and self-interest can poison family life.
The LibriVox recording has seventy-six sections, including the preface and postscript, and lasts about thirty-three and a half hours, all read by a single volunteer. Because the novel is so long, it suits the way it was first read, a little at a time. Listeners will find that the voices Dickens gave his characters come to life particularly well when spoken aloud, and the sharpness of his satire remains a pleasure today. Listeners who enjoy Dickens at his most theatrical will find plenty to relish here: speeches, schemes, comic misunderstandings and a final reckoning in which the wicked do not escape. The number of voices he invents is remarkable, and a single narrator can make each one distinct. The sheer length is part of the experience, like a long visit to a crowded and noisy household.
Public domain
Charles Dickens died in 1870: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
