Sylvere Monod

this one I loved, inspired all my Dickens reading

I read this book for a Victorian Literature class, and I enjoyed it and had some insights, but I didn't fully understand it until several years later when I worked in a county law library in the courthouse. There I saw how the Law can make people crazy. Definitely ought to be required reading for anyone going to law school or otherwise involved with civil law.

I liked Dickens story. It was complex and interesting. He has a lot of interesting characters and he puts some lessons in life in the story. It is a dark story with a semi-nice ending.

Having read a lot of Dickens, I want to recommend this particular edition highly. The footnotes include references not only to the sometimes obscure vocabulary, but also popular songs of the time, the Book of Common Prayer and Shakespeare. Readers in Dickens time would have picked up on the phrases but we readers in the 21st century appreciate the little extra help.