Customer Reviews

Henry Dunbar

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Many of the lurid best sellers of the nineteenth century, once despised by highbrow critics, have the flavor of true literature when read today. This is certainly true of the best work of Mary Elizabeth Braddon.

Mrs. Braddon wrote over eighty novels, some anonymously for the working-class penny fiction market, and others under her own name for middle-class readers. This novel had an earlier incarnation as a far more sensational story with multiple crimes. When published in 1864 as Henry Dunbar, the plot was refined for more educated tastes, and the corpses were reduced to one.

Henry Dunbar, heir to the fabulously wealthy banking firm of Dunbar, Dunbar and Balderby, had connived at a forgery as a young man, and had consequently been banished to the Calcutta office. His thoughtless young confederate in the forgery, Joseph Wilmot, is less fortunate. He goes on to commit other forgeries and is transported.

When the two former friends meet again, there's murder - and the police never manage to solve the crime.

There's no real mystery to the reader, however, about what transpired. Rather, the great interest of the book is the devastating effect of the crime on the murderer, his family and the victim's family - and the infinitely clever manipulations of the guilty and the innocent.

The plot is complex, sophisticated, both romantic and thought provoking, and steeped in psychological realism. It includes a clever detective and a high-principled, amazingly courageous heroine.

Henry Dunbar was a great success with readers in its day and richly deserves its revival. The scholarly preface (which should be read last) explores the novel as a fictional commentary on Victorian attitudes to class, gender and crime.

I loved the book and strongly recommend reading it in this superior format, with its pleasant typeface and excellent introduction.

Este formato es realmente muy cómodo y fácil de usar porque se puede leer en su teléfono y se puede ver la biografía escrita por el mismo autor me gustó mucho este nuevo sistema para que mis libros a mi disposición

Lo maximooooooo, funciona de maravilla, es muy facil de usar lo recomiendo, facita mucho la lectura diaria, pude encontrar lo que buscaba al precio y para mi sorpresa este formato es muy comodo y facil de utilizar...muuuuuuy buena tienen un 100...