The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit

Set partly in America, which Dickens had visited in 1842, the novel includes a searing satire on the United States and is the story of the two Chuzzlewits, Martin and Jonas, who have inherited the characteristic Chuzzlewit selfishness. It contrasts their diverse fates of moral redemption and worldly success for one, with increasingly desparate crime for the other. This powerful black comedy revolves around hypocrisy, greed and blackmail and features one of the most famous of Dickens's grotesques, Mrs Gamp.