Our Mutual Friend

When I devised this story, I foresaw the likelihood that a class of readers and commentators would suppose that I was at great pains to conceal exactly what I was at great pains to suggest: namely, that Mr John Harmon was not slain, and that Mr John Rokesmith was he.

Corpse-in-the-river opening through Boffin fortune, Rokesmith's hidden identity, and Headstone's murderous triangle—plot as double inheritance mystery with a schoolmaster climax—so plot scores 91.

Mr and Mrs Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new.

John Harmon/Rokesmith, Bella Wilfer, Nicodemus Boffin, Silas Wegg, Bradley Headstone, and Lizzie Hexam—each figure tests what money does to character; the bran-new Veneerings typify Dickens's satirical cast design, so cast scores 93.

Mr and Mrs Veneering were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new.

Four books with Veneering dinner-table set-pieces and Podsnap philosophy dilating the middle; the Headstone pursuit and river climax restore urgency—tempo is satirical-inductive rather than thriller-linear, so pace scores 81.

Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new.

Late Dickens at full stretch—the bran-new Veneerings, Wegg's ballad of the bird of prey, Headstone's monomania—prose modulates from comic grotesque to Gothic intensity, so prose scores 92.

In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark bridge which is of iron, and London Bridge which is of stone, as an autumn evening was closing in.

The Thames from Gaffer's boat to Plashwater Weir Mill Lock, the Veneering house, Boffin's Bower, and the dust-heaps of Kingscross—London as vertical society from mud-larks to parvenus, so world scores 94.

In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark bridge which is of iron, and London Bridge which is of stone, as an autumn evening was closing in.

Ch.1—the dirty Thames boat and the body—establishes the river as moral conduit before a single drawing-room scene; one of Dickens's strongest late openings, so hook scores 89.

The man, whose name is Harmon, was only son of a tremendous old rascal who made his money by Dust. By which means, or by others, he grew rich as a Dust Contractor, and lived in a hollow in a hilly country entirely composed of Dust. Coal-dust, vegetable-dust, bone-dust, crockery dust, rough dust and sifted dust,—all manner of Dust.

Dust-heaps as fortune, the secretary who is the heir, and class mobility satire through "bran-new" people—anticipates modern analyses of wealth and identity; Headstone as psychological villain before the term existed, so innov scores 90.

Rogue Riderhood went into his Lock-house, and brought forth, into the now sober grey light, his chest of clothes. Sitting on the grass beside it, he turned out, one by one, the articles it contained, until he came to a conspicuous bright red neckerchief stained black here and there by wear.

Bella's reformed marriage, Boffin's secret test revealed, and Headstone drowned—structurally complete though the authorial coda on wills is essayistic; darkness resolved into domestic comedy without erasing the body's weight, so ending scores 88.