Our Mutual Friend

novel by Dickens

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Article History

Our Mutual Friend, last completed novel by Charles Dickens, published serially in 1864–65 and in book form in 1865. Sometimes compared to Bleak House because of its subject matter, Our Mutual Friend is essentially a critique of Victorian monetary and class values. London is portrayed as grimmer than ever before, and the corruption, complacency, and superficiality of “respectable” society are fiercely attacked. The novel is also notable because of Dickens’s sympathetic portrayal of a Jewish character named Riah, which some critics have seen as an attempt to atone for the character of Fagin in Oliver Twist.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kara Rogers.