MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT（ISBN=9780679438847）

From AudioFile
Old Martin Chuzzlewit has a great fortune, but to whom can he leave it? He and his likable grandson, young Martin, have fallen out. Beyond that, a tangle of sly, grasping relatives coil about him. Throughout, the reader is rooting for the gentle Tom Pinch and his lovely sister, Mary. But before all can be decided, Dickens puts both Tom and young Martin through murder, mayhem and a brief purgatory in the United States. Reader Davidson quickly tunes into Dickens's ferocious irony, but his paramount strength is his uncanny ability to find and maintain the perfect voice for each of the vintage characters: drippy, insinuous, vicious, sly, bold American backwoods, or London Cheapside. Each is a distinct creation! Dickens lovers will treasure every tape in this two-volume masterpiece. P.E.F.An AUDIOFILE Earphones Award winner. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Review
Martin Chuzzlewit is a dramatic serial on Masterpiece Theatre, a PBS television series presented by WGBH-TV, Boston, made possible by a grant from Mobil Corporation. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed) At The Center of Martin Chuzzlewit -- the novel Angus Wilson called "one of the most sheerly exciting of all Dickens stories" -- is Martin himself, very old, very rich, very much on his guard. What he suspects (with good reason) is that every one of Iris close and distant relations. now converging in droves on the country inn where they believe he is dying, will stop at nothing to become the inheritor of Iris great fortune. Having unjustly disinherited Iris grandson, young Martin, the old fellow now trusts no one but Mary Graham, the pretty girl hired as Iris companion. Though she has been made to understand she will not inherit a penny, she remains old Chuzzlewit's only ally. As the viperish relations and hangers-on close in on him, we meet some of Dickens's most marvelous characters -- among them Mr. Pecksniff (whose name has entered the language as a synonym for ultimate hypocrisy and self-importance); the fabulously evil Jonas Chuzzlewit; the strutting reptile Tigg Montague; and the ridiculous, terrible, comical Sairey Gamp. Reluctantly heading for America in search of opportunity, the penniless young Martin goes west, rides a riverboat, and is overtaken by bad company and mortal danger -- while the battle for his grandfather's gold reveals new depths of family treachery, cunning, and ruthlessness. And in scene after wonderful scene of conflict and suspense, of high excitement and fierce and hilarious satire, Dickens's huge saga of greed versus decency comes to its magnificent climax.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870), despite an impoverished childhood and little formal education, achieved lasting artistic and popular success with the novels Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, and Great Expectations, all of which were originally published in serial form.
Patricia Ingham is a Fellow of St. Anne's College, Reader in English, and The Times Lecturer in English Language at Oxford University.

Introduction      .
Select Bibliography
Chronology       .
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Characters .
Preface to the First Edition
Preface to the 'Cheap Edition
Preface to the "Charles Dickens Edition'
MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT    
Postscript
Appendix
Introduction to the original Everyman editionby G. K. Chesterton