Our Mutual Friend

First published in 1864-1865, this novel opens with a body in the Thames and the question of who inherits the Harmon dust-heap fortune. John Harmon is supposed drowned; Bella Wilfer has been willed as the heir's bride; the waterman Gaffer Hexam and the one-legged ballad-seller Silas Wegg move along the river and the mounds of refuse. The Boffins, who rise from servants to inheritors, and the Veneerings' new-money dinner table supply a second social world. The book is a late Dickens novel about money, waste, and assumed identity in London, where the river and the dust heaps set the terms of belonging.

Quarter leather burgundy binding with title stamped in gilt on spine. Gilt page tops. Dark red slipcase. Text and illustrations reproduce those.