Our Mutual Friend

a novel by Charles Dickens, published in nineteen installments during 1864-65. This is one of Dickens' most entertaining stories, although, so far as plot goes, one of the most improbable. The story is based on the assumption by two simple old people of characters wholly foreign to their true nature in order that they may teach to a warmhearted but ambitious girl the fact that wealth brings oftentimes temptations and evils in its train. Many interesting personalities appear in the course of the story. Jenny Wren, the doll's dressmaker; Silas Wegg, who "dropped into poetry"; Pleasant Rider-hood, always twisting up her hair; the Golden Dustman; Lizzie Hexam, and the Veneerings are people whom everyone wishes to know.