Much of Dickens' ire is focused upon the institutions of debtors prisons—in which people who owed money were imprisoned, unable to work, until they repaid their debts. The representative prison in this case is the Marshalsea.
Most of Dickens' other critiques in this particular novel are about other issues with regards to the social safety net: industry, and the treatment and safety of workers; the bureaucracy of the British government's ministries (especially the fictional "Circumlocution Office" [Bk. 1, Ch. 10]); and the separation of people based on the lack of intercourse between the classes.
The plot revolves around the characters of Little Dorrit, whose father is imprisoned in the Marshalsea for much of the novel, and of the businessman Arthur Clennam. As their love one for another grows, they suffer reversals of fortunes that follow them across Europe and back to England before the final resolution of this novel.
Publication
Little Dorrit, like most Dickens novels, was published in 19 monthly installments, each comprising 32 pages and two illustrations by Phiz. Each cost one shilling, with the exception of the last, double-issue, which cost two.
BOOK THE FIRST: POVERTY
I - December 1855 (chapters 1-4);
II - January 1856 (chapters 5-8);
III - February 1856 (chapters 9-11);
IV - March 1856 (chapters 12-14);
V - April 1856 (chapters 15-18);
VI - May 1856 (chapters 19-22);
VII - June 1856 (chapters 23-25);
VIII - July 1856 (chapters 26-29);
IX - August 1856 (chapters 30-32);
X - September 1856 (chapters 33-36).
BOOK THE SECOND: RICHES
XI - October 1856 (chapters 1-4);
XII - November 1856 (chapters 5-7);
XIII - December 1856 (chapters 8-11);
XIV - January 1857 (chapters 12-14);
XV - February 1857 (chapters 15-18);
XVI - March 1857 (chapters 19-22);
XVII - April 1857 (chapters 23-26);
XVIII - May 1857 (chapters 27-29);
XIX-XX - June 1857 (chapters 30-34).
External links
Little Dorrit (http://www.dickens-literature.com/Little_Dorrit/) - searchable, indexed e-text.
Little Dorrit (http://www.charles-dickens.org/little-dorrit/) - in easy to read HTML format.
Christened Amy, she is known as LittleDorritt and is the younger daughter of William Dorritt “The Father of the Marshalsea.”; Only after we pass through these three prisons do we come to the Marshalsea itself and the Dorritts.
Little Dorrit promises to return with her to plead with Blandois, but as they approach the house, it crumbles and disintegrates, burying Blandois in its debris The strange noises heard by Affêry had been intimations of the rot and decay which were to bring the house down at last.
Clenham is of her guilt; Old Dorritt is described as now boasting, now despairing, in either fit, a captive with the jail-rot upon him, and the impurity of his prison worn into the grain of his soul; the drab London houses are like old places of imprisonment; The Circumlocution Office is like a prison too.
Towards the distant line of Italian coast, indeed, it was a little relieved by light clouds of mist, slowly rising from the evaporation of the sea, but it softened nowhere else.
The little man sat down again upon the pavement with the negligent ease of one who was thoroughly accustomed to pavements; and placing three hunks of coarse bread before himself, and falling to upon a fourth, began contentedly to work his way through them as if to clear them off were a sort of game.
The little man obeyed his orders, and stood ready to give him a lighted match; for he was now rolling his tobacco into cigarettes by the aid of little squares of paper which had been brought in with it.
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