<i>Our Mutual Friend</i> made me want to be a writer
- Zoe Heller, Guardian
Dickens wasn't just telling a story, but drawing a panoramic picture of his times, full of detail about the way the Victorians lived, loved and thought. <i>Our Mutual Friend</i> is superbly constructed - part social satire, part murder mystery, part love story. It is crowded with memorable characters: the aspirational Veneerings, the playboy lawyer Eugene Wrayburn, and the heroines: giddy-minded Bella Wilfur and saintly Lizzy Hexam
Independent
<i>Our Mutual Friend</i> disturbs us to the root of our being...terribly great
- John Sutherland,
Perhaps his greatest work. The great novel of London: dark, wise, unsentimental
- William Boyd, Newsweek
Charles Dickens is the greatest novelist in the English language
- Peter Ackroyd,