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Dombey And Son

by Charles Dickens


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About Book

From AudioFile
Frederick Davidson gives such a splendid dramatization of this family saga, set in London in the 1840's, that it's almost like watching theater. Davidson matches his versatile voice to each one of the principals. He also manages to distinguish with equal elasticity among a host of vivid and disparate supporting characters. Thanks to Davidson's seamless delivery, the narrative sweeps the listener through more than 40 hours of sustained drama. J.H.L. An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award winner. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review
“There’s no writing against such power as this—one has no chance.”—William Makepeace Thackeray

Review
?There?s no writing against such power as this?one has no chance.??William Makepeace Thackeray

Book Description
Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens’s story of a powerful man whose callous neglect of his family triggers his professional and personal downfall, showcases the author’s gift for vivid characterization and unfailingly realistic description. As Jonathan Lethem contends in his Introduction, Dickens’s “genius . . . is at one with the genius of the form of the novel itself: Dickens willed into existence the most capacious and elastic and versatile kind of novel that could be, one big enough for his vast sentimental yearnings and for every impulse and fear and hesitation in him that countervailed those yearnings too. Never parsimonious and frequently contradictory, he always gives us everything he can, everything he’s planned to give, and then more.” This Modern Library Paperback Classic was set from the 1867 “Charles Dickens” edition.

Download Description
The bustling, teeming streets of mid-Victorian London with their age-old vistas and traditions come vividly alive in this novel. But year by year the new railway technology is remaking London in its own image. Dickens responds to the real contradictions of Britain's new industrial power: its potential for creation and destruction, for life and death.

The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature
(in full Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son, Wholesale, Retail, and for Exportation) Novel by Charles Dickens, published in 20 monthly installments during 1846-48 and in book form in 1848. It was a crucial novel in his development, a product of more thorough planning and maturer thought than his earlier serialized books. The title character, Mr. Dombey, is a wealthy shipping merchant whose wife dies giving birth to their second child, a long-hoped-for son and heir, Paul. The elder child, Florence, being female, is neglected by her father. When Paul's health is broken by the rigors of boarding school and he dies, Dombey's hopes are dashed. In her grief, Florence draws emotional support from her father's employee Walter Gay. Resentful of their relationship, Dombey sends Gay to the West Indies, where he is shipwrecked and presumed lost. Dombey then takes a new wife--the poor but proud widow Edith Granger--who eventually runs off with Dombey's trusted assistant. After his ultimately empty pursuit of the pair, Dombey returns bereft and bankrupt. Walter Gay, meanwhile, has returned with the story of his rescue by a China clipper and asked Florence to marry him. They set sail for the East, returning a few years later with a baby son--named Paul--to find Mr. Dombey on the brink of suicide. The family's reconciliation concludes the book in a typically Dickensian glow.

From the Publisher
Founded in 1906 by J.M. Dent, the Everyman Library has always tried to make the best books ever written available to the greatest number of people at the lowest possible price. Unique editorial features that help Everyman Paperback Classics stand out from the crowd include: a leading scholar or literary critic's introduction to the text, a biography of the author, a chronology of her or his life and times, a historical selection of criticism, and a concise plot summary. All books published since 1993 have also been completely restyled: all type has been reset, to offer a clarity and ease of reading unique among editions of the classics; a vibrant, full-color cover design now complements these great texts with beautiful contemporary works of art. But the best feature must be Everyman's uniquely low price. Each Everyman title offers these extensive materials at a price that competes with the most inexpensive editions on the market-but Everyman Paperbacks have durable binding, quality paper, and the highest editorial and scholarly standards.

Inside Flap Copy
Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens?s story of a powerful man whose callous neglect of his family triggers his professional and personal downfall, showcases the author?s gift for vivid characterization and unfailingly realistic description. As Jonathan Lethem contends in his Introduction, Dickens?s ?genius . . . is at one with the genius of the form of the novel itself: Dickens willed into existence the most capacious and elastic and versatile kind of novel that could be, one big enough for his vast sentimental yearnings and for every impulse and fear and hesitation in him that countervailed those yearnings too. Never parsimonious and frequently contradictory, he always gives us everything he can, everything he?s planned to give, and then more.? This Modern Library Paperback Classic was set from the 1867 ?Charles Dickens? edition.

From the Back Cover
“There’s no writing against such power as this—one has no chance.”—William Makepeace Thackeray

About the Author
Jonathan Lethem is the author of six novels, including Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude. He lives in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER I.

Dombey and Son.


Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great arm-chair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of the fire and close to it, as if his constitution were analogous to that of a muffin, and it was essential to toast him brown while he was very new.

Dombey was about eight-and-forty years of age. Son about eight-and-forty minutes. Dombey was rather bald, rather red, and though a handsome well-made man, too stern and pompous in appearance, to be prepossessing. Son was very bald, and very red, and though (of course) an undeniably fine infant, somewhat crushed and spotty in his general effect, as yet. On the brow of Dombey, Time and his brother Care had set some marks, as on a tree that was to come down in good time—remorseless twins they are for striding through their human forests, notching as they go—while the countenance of Son was crossed and recrossed with a thousand little creases, which the same deceitful Time would take delight in smoothing out and wearing away with the flat part of his scythe, as a preparation of the surface for his deeper operations.

Dombey, exulting in the long-looked-for event, jingled and jingled the heavy gold watch-chain that depended from below his trim blue coat, whereof the buttons sparkled phosphorescently in the feeble rays of the distant fire. Son, with his little fists curled up and clenched, seemed, in his feeble way, to be squaring at existence for having come upon him so unexpectedly.

“The house will once again, Mrs. Dombey,” said Mr. Dombey, “be not only in name but in fact Dombey and Son; Dom-bey and Son!”

The words had such a softening influence, that he appended a term of endearment to Mrs. Dombey’s name (though not without some hesitation, as being a man but little used to that form of address): and said, “Mrs. Dombey, my—my dear.”

A transient flush of faint surprise overspread the sick lady’s face as she raised her eyes towards him.

“He will be christened Paul, my—Mrs. Dombey—of course.”

She feebly echoed, “Of course,” or rather expressed it by the motion of her lips, and closed her eyes again.

“His father’s name, Mrs. Dombey, and his grandfather’s! I wish his grandfather were alive this day!” And again he said “Dom-bey and Son,” in exactly the same tone as before.

Those three words conveyed the one idea of Mr. Dombey’s life. The earth was made for Dombey and Son to trade in, and the sun and moon were made to give them light. Rivers and seas were formed to float their ships; rainbows gave them promise of fair weather; winds blew for or against their enterprises; stars and planets circled in their orbits, to preserve inviolate a system of which they were the centre. Common abbreviations took new meanings in his eyes, and had sole reference to them: A. D. had no concern with anno Domini, but stood for anno Dombei—and Son.

He had risen, as his father had before him, in the course of life and death, from Son to Dombey, and for nearly twenty years had been the sole representative of the firm. Of those years he had been married, ten—married, as some said, to a lady with no heart to give him; whose happiness was in the past, and who was content to bind her broken spirit to the dutiful and meek endurance of the present. Such idle talk was little likely to reach the ears of Mr. Dombey, whom it nearly concerned; and probably no one in the world would have received it with such utter incredulity as he, if it had reached him. Dombey and Son had often dealt in hides, but never in hearts. They left that fancy ware to boys and girls, and boarding-schools and books. Mr. Dombey would have reasoned: That a matrimonial alliance with himself must, in the nature of things, be gratifying and honourable to any woman of common sense. That the hope of giving birth to a new partner in such a house, could not fail to awaken a glorious and stirring ambition in the breast of the least ambitious of her sex. That Mrs. Dombey had entered on that social contract of matrimony: almost necessarily part of a genteel and wealthy station, even without reference to the perpetuation of family firms: with her eyes fully open to these advantages. That Mrs. Dombey had had daily practical knowledge of his position in society. That Mrs. Dombey had always sat at the head of his table, and done the honours of his house in a remarkably lady-like and becoming manner. That Mrs. Dombey must have been happy. That she couldn’t help it.

Or, at all events, with one drawback. Yes. That he would have allowed. With only one; but that one certainly involving much. They had been married ten years, and until this present day on which Mr. Dombey sat jingling and jingling his heavy gold watch-chain in the great arm-chair by the side of the bed, had had no issue.

—To speak of; none worth mentioning. There had been a girl some six years before, and the child, who had stolen into the chamber unobserved, was now crouching timidly, in a corner whence she could see her mother’s face. But what was a girl to Dombey and Son! In the capital of the House’s name and dignity, such a child was merely a piece of base coin that couldn’t be invested—a bad Boy—nothing more.

Mr. Dombey’s cup of satisfaction was so full at this moment, however, that he felt he could afford a drop or two of its contents, even to sprinkle on the dust in the by-path of his little daughter.

So he said, “Florence, you may go and look at your pretty brother, if you like, I dare say. Don’t touch him!”

The child glanced keenly at the blue coat and stiff white cravat, which, with a pair of creaking boots and a very loud ticking watch, embodied her idea of a father; but her eyes returned to her mother’s face immediately, and she neither moved nor answered.

Next moment, the lady had opened her eyes and seen the child; and the child had run towards her; and, standing on tiptoe, the better to hide her face in her embrace, had clung about her with a desperate affection very much at variance with her years.

“Oh Lord bless me!” said Mr. Dombey, rising testily. “A very ill-advised and feverish proceeding this, I am sure. I had better ask Doctor Peps if he’ll have the goodness to step up stairs again perhaps. I’ll go down. I’ll go down. I needn’t beg you,” he added, pausing for a moment at the settee before the fire, “to take particular care of this young gentleman, Mrs.—”

“Blockitt, Sir?” suggested the nurse, a simpering piece of faded gentility, who did not presume to state her name as a fact, but merely offered it as a mild suggestion.

“Of this young gentleman, Mrs. Blockitt.”

“No, Sir, indeed. I remember when Miss Florence was born—”

“Ay, ay, ay,” said Mr. Dombey, bending over the basket bedstead, and slightly bending his brows at the same time. “Miss Florence was all very well, but this is another matter. This young gentleman has to accomplish a destiny. A destiny, little fellow!” As he thus apostrophised the infant he raised one of his hands to his lips, and kissed it; then, seeming to fear that the action involved some compromise of his dignity, went, awkwardly enough, away.

Doctor Parker Peps, one of the Court Physicians, and a man of immense reputation for assisting at the increase of great families, was walking up and down the drawing-room with his hands behind him, to the unspeakable admiration of the family Surgeon, who had regularly puffed the case for the last six weeks, among all his patients, friends, and acquaintances, as one to which he was in hourly expectation day and night of being summoned, in conjunction with Doctor Parker Peps.

“Well, Sir,” said Doctor Parker Peps in a round, deep, sonorous voice, muffled for the occasion, like the knocker; “do you find that your dear lady is at all roused by your visit?”

“Stimulated as it were?” said the family practitioner faintly: bowing at the same time to the Doctor, as much as to say, “Excuse my putting in a word, but this is a valuable connexion.”

Mr. Dombey was quite discomfited by the question. He had thought so little of the patient, that he was not in a condition to answer it. He said that it would be a satisfaction to him, if Doctor Parker Peps would walk up stairs again.

“Good! We must not disguise from you, Sir,” said Doctor Parker Peps, “that there is a want of power in Her Grace the Duchess—I beg your pardon; I confound names; I should say, in your amiable lady. That there is a certain degree of languor, and a general absence of elasticity, which we would rather—not—”

“See,” interposed the family practitioner with another inclination of the head.

“Quite so,” said Doctor Parker Peps, “which we would rather not see. It would appear that the system of Lady Cankaby—excuse me: I should say of Mrs. Dombey: I confuse the names of cases—”

“So very numerous,” murmured the family practitioner—“can’t be expected I’m sure—quite wonderful if otherwise—Doctor Parker Peps’s West End practice—”

“Thank you,” said the Doctor, “quite so. It would appear, I was observing, that the system of our patient has sustained a shock, from which it can only hope to rally by a great and strong—”

“And vigorous,” murmured the family practitioner.

“Quite so,” assented the Doctor—“and vigorous effort. Mr. Pilkins here, who from his position of medical adviser in this family—no one better qual...

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