38 h 24 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 38 h 24 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the strongest prison walls are built from debt, shame, and the need to keep up appearances?
Amy Dorrit is born inside London's Marshalsea prison. Now a seamstress, she works to support her family while her proud father, William Dorrit, remains behind its walls. Called Little Dorrit, she carries burdens far larger than her slight figure suggests. Love and duty leave her little room for herself.
Arthur Clennam returns from China with a troubled conscience and a wish to put right a family wrong. At his mother's gloomy house, he meets Amy. His efforts to help the Dorrits lead him toward buried secrets and the Circumlocution Office, where useful work meets endless obstacles. Around them, money commands respect and shame keeps people trapped.
What you’ll discover
- A quiet source of strength Meet Amy, whose daily work and care sustain her proud father and struggling family.
- Prisons beyond iron gates Explore how debt, family secrets, and the love of money can hold people captive.
- Comedy with sharp teeth Enter the Circumlocution Office, where Arthur's search for answers runs into a machinery of delay.
- A house full of shadows Follow Arthur into his mother's dark home, carrying doubts about his family's past.
- Lives woven into mystery Watch a quick-minded rent collector, an ambitious sister, and a patient inventor add their threads.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy big Victorian stories full of comic names, sharp satire, secrets in old houses, and a quiet heroine whose goodness shows in small acts of love.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Prison does not erase social power
- Arthur returns to a locked past
- Amy carries her family quietly
- Official politeness protects official inaction
- Useful work offers Arthur a purpose
- Wealth creates another kind of prison
- Repeated images connect poverty and riches
- Quiet care counters a confined world
Who’s who
- Little DorritAmy Dorrit, born inside the Marshalsea prison, works as a seamstress and quietly supports her father, her sister, her brother and her uncle.
- Arthur ClennamA gentle man of forty home from China, he wants to learn whether his family's money wronged someone and to find some purpose in life.
- William DorritThe proud Father of the Marshalsea, a debtor held for many years who clings to the dignity of being a gentleman.
- Mrs ClennamArthur's stern mother, who has remained in her room for years and guards her business and her secrets with fierce religion.
- Mr MeaglesA retired banker and loving father who travels the world with his wife and daughter, calls himself practical, and befriends Arthur.
- Miss WadeA proud, bitter young woman who trusts nobody and draws the unhappy maid Tattycoram into her angry way of seeing the world.
- RigaudA smooth, cruel cosmopolitan who calls himself a gentleman, is taken to trial in Marseilles, and later appears under the name Blandois.
- Mr PancksA snorting, grubby rent collector who works for the Patriarch Casby and takes up a secret investigation of the Dorrit family.
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- Hardcover
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Little Dorrit
by Charles Dickens · 1857
Two men share a Marseilles prison cell, and a girl born in a London debtors' jail waits to cross their paths.
ChallengingOver 20 hours to readEnglish
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In short
What does a prison look like when nobody locks the door? In Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens answers by putting bars everywhere.
Little Dorrit at a glance
- Reading time
- About 22 h17 h 30 min fast, 26 h 15 min slow
- Length
- 314,600 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1857by Charles Dickens
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Two prisoners share a cell in Marseilles
The book opens in the August glare of Marseilles, where the sun seems to stare at every wall. Then Dickens takes us into a filthy cell where two men wait. Light outside and darkness within set the tone for all that follows.
One prisoner is Cavalletto, a small, cheerful Italian smuggler who flavors his dry bread with the blade of his knife. The other is Monsieur Rigaud, tall, pale and proud, who keeps announcing that he is a gentleman. The jailer brings Rigaud sausage, wine and fresh loaves. Cavalletto gets coarse bread. Even in jail, money buys comfort.
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- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1857
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 25 h 0 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Dickens, Charles. Little Dorrit. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/little-dorrit.
Dickens, C. (2026). Little Dorrit. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/little-dorrit (Original work published 1857)
Dickens, Charles. Little Dorrit. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/little-dorrit.
@book{dickens2026little,
author = {Dickens, Charles},
title = {Little Dorrit},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/little-dorrit},
note = {First published 1857}
}
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What is Little Dorrit about?
It follows Arthur Clennam, home from China, and Amy Dorrit, a seamstress born in the Marshalsea debtors' prison. Their stories link the Dorrit family, Arthur's strict mother and a society ruled by money and government delay.
Why is she called Little Dorrit?
Amy Dorrit is small and was born in the Marshalsea, where her father is a debtor. Arthur first hears her called Little Dorrit at his mother's house, and the name shows how modestly she carries herself.
What is the Circumlocution Office?
It is an invented government department that Dickens uses to mock official delay. Its motto is how not to do it, and it answers every request with forms, referrals and polite refusals.
The author
Charles Dickens
1812–1870 · English novelist
Charles Dickens was an English novelist born in Portsmouth in 1812. He lived in London and later at Gad’s Hill Place in Kent, where he died in 1870. His books include The Pickwick Papers (1836–1837), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1849–1850), and Great Expectations (1860–1861).
More by Charles Dickens
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