The story is dedicated with great esteem to The Marchioness of Normanby...

I cannot forego my usual opportunity of saying farewell to my readers in this greeting-place, though I have only to acknowledge the unbounded warmth and earnestness of their sympathy in every stage of...

I make so bold as to believe that the faculty (or the habit) of correctly observing the characters of men, is a rare one. I have not even found, within my experience, that the faculty (or the habit) o...

Dombey sat in the corner of the darkened room in the great armchair by the bedside, and Son lay tucked up warm in a little basket bedstead, carefully disposed on a low settee immediately in front of t...

“I shall never cease to congratulate myself,” said Mrs. Chick, “on having said, when I little thought what was in store for us⁠—really as if I was inspired by something⁠—that I forgave poor dear Fanny...

The funeral of the deceased lady having been “performed” to the entire satisfaction of the undertaker, as well as of the neighbourhood at large, which is generally disposed to be captious on such a po...

Though the offices of Dombey and Son were within the liberties of the City of London, and within hearing of Bow Bells, when their clashing voices were not drowned by the uproar in the streets, yet wer...

Little Paul, suffering no contamination from the blood of the Toodles, grew stouter and stronger every day. Every day, too, he was more and more ardently cherished by Miss Tox, whose devotion was so f...

Polly was beset by so many misgivings in the morning, that but for the incessant promptings of her black-eyed companion, she would have abandoned all thoughts of the expedition, and formally petitione...

Miss Tox inhabited a dark little house that had been squeezed, at some remote period of English History, into a fashionable neighbourhood at the west end of the town, where it stood in the shade like ...

Beneath the watching and attentive eyes of Time⁠—so far another Major⁠—Paul’s slumbers gradually changed. More and more light broke in upon them; distincter and distincter dreams disturbed them; an ac...

That spice of romance and love of the marvellous, of which there was a pretty strong infusion in the nature of young Walter Gay, and which the guardianship of his Uncle, old Solomon Gills, had not ver...

Major Bagstock, after long and frequent observation of Paul, across Princess’s Place, through his double-barrelled opera-glass; and after receiving many minute reports, daily, weekly, and monthly, on ...

Mrs. Pipchin’s constitution was made of such hard metal, in spite of its liability to the fleshly weaknesses of standing in need of repose after chops, and of requiring to be coaxed to sleep by the so...

After the lapse of some minutes, which appeared an immense time to little Paul Dombey on the table, Doctor Blimber came back. The Doctor’s walk was stately, and calculated to impress the juvenile mind...

Mr. Dombey’s offices were in a court where there was an old-established stall of choice fruit at the corner: where perambulating merchants, of both sexes, offered for sale at any time between the hour...

When the Midsummer vacation approached, no indecent manifestations of joy were exhibited by the leaden-eyed young gentlemen assembled at Doctor Blimber’s. Any such violent expression as “breaking up,”...

Walter could not, for several days, decide what to do in the Barbados business; and even cherished some faint hope that Mr. Dombey might not have meant what he had said, or that he might change his mi...

Paul had never risen from his little bed. He lay there, listening to the noises in the street, quite tranquilly; not caring much how the time went, but watching it and watching everything about him wi...

Captain Cuttle, in the exercise of that surprising talent for deep-laid and unfathomable scheming, with which (as is not unusual in men of transparent simplicity) he sincerely believed himself to be e...

There is a hush through Mr. Dombey’s house. Servants gliding up and down stairs rustle, but make no sound of footsteps. They talk together constantly, and sit long at meals, making much of their meat ...

The wooden Midshipman at the Instrument-maker’s door, like the hard-hearted little Midshipman he was, remained supremely indifferent to Walter’s going away, even when the very last day of his sojourn ...

“Mr. Dombey, Sir,” said Major Bagstock, “Joey B. is not in general a man of sentiment, for Joseph is tough. But Joe has his feelings, Sir, and when they are awakened⁠—Damme, Mr. Dombey,” cried the Maj...

The Major, more blue-faced and staring⁠—more overripe, as it were, than ever⁠—and giving vent, every now and then, to one of the horse’s coughs, not so much of necessity as in a spontaneous explosion ...

Mr. Carker the Manager sat at his desk, smooth and soft as usual, reading those letters which were reserved for him to open, backing them occasionally with such memoranda and references as their busin...

Florence lived alone in the great dreary house, and day succeeded day, and still she lived alone; and the blank walls looked down upon her with a vacant stare, as if they had a Gorgon-like mind to sta...

Sir Barnet and Lady Skettles, very good people, resided in a pretty villa at Fulham, on the banks of the Thames; which was one of the most desirable residences in the world when a rowing-match happene...

Captain Cuttle, though no sluggard, did not turn out so early on the morning after he had seen Sol Gills, through the shopwindow, writing in the parlour, with the Midshipman upon the counter, and Rob ...

“Your most obedient, Sir,” said the Major. “Damme, Sir, a friend of my friend Dombey’s is a friend of mine, and I’m glad to see you!” “I am infinitely obliged, Carker,” explained Mr. Dombey, “to Major...

Mr. Carker the Manager rose with the lark, and went out, walking in the summer day. His meditations⁠—and he meditated with contracted brows while he strolled along⁠—hardly seemed to soar as high as th...

“So the day has come at length, Susan,” said Florence to the excellent Nipper, “when we are going back to our quiet home!” Susan drew in her breath with an amount of expression not easily described, f...

Miss Tox, all unconscious of any such rare appearances in connection with Mr. Dombey’s house, as scaffoldings and ladders, and men with their heads tied up in pocket-handkerchiefs, glaring in at the w...

Although the enchanted house was no more, and the working world had broken into it, and was hammering and crashing and tramping up and down stairs all day long keeping Diogenes in an incessant paroxys...

Dawn with its passionless blank face, steals shivering to the church beneath which lies the dust of little Paul and his mother, and looks in at the windows. It is cold and dark. Night crouches yet, up...

Honest Captain Cuttle, as the weeks flew over him in his fortified retreat, by no means abated any of his prudent provisions against surprise, because of the nonappearance of the enemy. The Captain ar...

Turn we our eyes upon two homes; not lying side by side, but wide apart, though both within easy range and reach of the great city of London. The first is situated in the green and wooded country near...

In an ugly and dark room, an old woman, ugly and dark too, sat listening to the wind and rain, and crouching over a meagre fire. More constant to the last-named occupation than the first, she never ch...

The dark blot on the street is gone. Mr. Dombey’s mansion, if it be a gap among the other houses any longer, is only so because it is not to be vied with in its brightness, and haughtily casts them of...

Many succeeding days passed in like manner; except that there were numerous visits received and paid, and that Mrs. Skewton held little levees in her own apartments, at which Major Bagstock was a freq...

Florence, Edith, and Mrs. Skewton were together next day, and the carriage was waiting at the door to take them out. For Cleopatra had her galley again now, and Withers, no longer the wan, stood uprig...

The forlorn Miss Tox, abandoned by her friend Louisa Chick, and bereft of Mr. Dombey’s countenance⁠—for no delicate pair of wedding cards, united by a silver thread, graced the chimney-glass in Prince...

Time, sure of foot and strong of will, had so pressed onward, that the year enjoined by the old Instrument-maker, as the term during which his friend should refrain from opening the sealed packet acco...

It was not in the nature of things that a man of Mr. Dombey’s mood, opposed to such a spirit as he had raised against himself, should be softened in the imperious asperity of his temper; or that the c...

All is going on as it was wont. The waves are hoarse with repetition of their mystery; the dust lies piled upon the shore; the seabirds soar and hover; the winds and clouds go forth upon their trackle...

Attired no more in Captain Cuttle’s sable slops and sou’-wester hat, but dressed in a substantial suit of brown livery, which, while it affected to be a very sober and demure livery indeed, was really...

Florence, long since awakened from her dream, mournfully observed the estrangement between her father and Edith, and saw it widen more and more, and knew that there was greater bitterness between them...

With the day, though not so early as the sun, uprose Miss Susan Nipper. There was a heaviness in this young maiden’s exceedingly sharp black eyes, that abated somewhat of their sparkling, and suggeste...

Edith went out alone that day, and returned home early. It was but a few minutes after ten o’clock, when her carriage rolled along the street in which she lived. There was the same enforced composure ...

Among sundry minor alterations in Mr. Carker’s life and habits that began to take place at this time, none was more remarkable than the extraordinary diligence with which he applied himself to busines...

The barrier between Mr. Dombey and his wife was not weakened by time. Ill-assorted couple, unhappy in themselves and in each other, bound together by no tie but the manacle that joined their fettered ...

In the wildness of her sorrow, shame, and terror, the forlorn girl hurried through the sunshine of a bright morning, as if it were the darkness of a winter night. Wringing her hands and weeping bitter...

It was long before Florence awoke. The day was in its prime, the day was in its wane, and still, uneasy in mind and body, she slept on; unconscious of her strange bed, of the noise and turmoil in the ...

There was an empty room above-stairs at the wooden Midshipman’s, which, in days of yore, had been Walter’s bedroom. Walter, rousing up the Captain betimes in the morning, proposed that they should car...

What is the proud man doing, while the days go by? Does he ever think of his daughter, or wonder where she is gone? Does he suppose she has come home, and is leading her old life in the weary house? N...

Good Mrs. Brown and her daughter Alice kept silent company together, in their own dwelling. It was early in the evening, and late in the spring. But a few days had elapsed since Mr. Dombey had told Ma...

There were two of the traitor’s own blood⁠—his renounced brother and sister⁠—on whom the weight of his guilt rested almost more heavily, at this time, than on the man whom he had so deeply injured. Pr...

The time, an hour short of midnight; the place, a French apartment, comprising some half-dozen rooms;⁠—a dull cold hall or corridor, a dining-room, a drawing-room, a bedchamber, and an inner drawing-r...

The porter at the iron gate which shut the courtyard from the street, had left the little wicket of his house open, and was gone away; no doubt to mingle in the distant noise at the door of the great ...

The Midshipman was all alive. Mr. Toots and Susan had arrived at last. Susan had run upstairs like a young woman bereft of her senses, and Mr. Toots and the Chicken had gone into the Parlour. “Oh my o...

Mr. Sownds the beadle, and Mrs. Miff the pew-opener, are early at their posts in the fine church where Mr. Dombey was married. A yellow-faced old gentleman from India, is going to take unto himself a ...

The sea had ebbed and flowed, through a whole year. Through a whole year, the winds and clouds had come and gone; the ceaseless work of Time had been performed, in storm and sunshine. Through a whole ...

Changes have come again upon the great house in the long dull street, once the scene of Florence’s childhood and loneliness. It is a great house still, proof against wind and weather, without breaches...

The grand half-yearly festival holden by Doctor and Mrs. Blimber, on which occasion they requested the pleasure of the company of every young gentleman pursuing his studies in that genteel establishme...

Florence had need of help. Her father’s need of it was sore, and made the aid of her old friend invaluable. Death stood at his pillow. A shade, already, of what he had been, shattered in mind, and per...

A bottle that has been long excluded from the light of day, and is hoary with dust and cobwebs, has been brought into the sunshine; and the golden wine within it sheds a lustre on the table. It is the...