Barnaby Rudge

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<b>A superb novel of individuals caught in the horrors of mass activity, <i>Barnaby Rudge</i> dramatizes two of Dickens's major preoccupations - private murder and public violence</b> The cheerful, cosy domesticity of the Maypole Inn; the uneasy relationship between dull-witted, tyrannical John Willet and elegant, cold-hearted John Chester and their sons; the sinister activities of the apprentices plotting to overthrow their masters: all these plunge the reader in the opening chapters into the tense atmosphere of England just before the Gordon Riots. When the storm breaks and Lord George Gordon embarks on his crazed ride into London, the action explodes into violence and mayhem. In his handling of the three riot leaders, one of them Barnaby Rudge (mentally blighted by a crime committed at his birth), and his depiction of an infuriated mob storming through the streets of London to burn down Newgate prison, Dickens is at his most brilliant and terrifying.