We have fair roared with laughter at some of the character descriptions. Notably, Miggs and her mistress are truly hilarious. George Gordon is like a perfect Punch cartoon, and the star of it all is the Raven. It seems to bring a unique charm to the whole story.

Don't be put off by 'them' telling you that a story is 'lesser'. In fact, the 'lesser' works of Charles Dickens are far superior than anything written by 'them'. Dickens has a remarkable talent for creating vivid characters and engaging plots. His works are filled with depth and complexity, even in those that might be considered 'lesser' by some.

We should not be swayed by the opinions of others. Instead, we should explore Dickens' works for ourselves and discover the true beauty and value within them. Whether it's the comical characters or the captivating storylines, Dickens always has something to offer that will leave us entertained and enlightened.

Only three stars for a Dickens novel? Well, yes.

The first of Dickens's two historical novels (the second being A Tale of Two Cities), Barnaby Rudge deals with the Gordon riots. The initial part of the novel is truly captivating, taking place before the riots completely overtake the plot. However, those early events are unfortunately overshadowed by the extreme violence that dominates the second half of the novel. This makes it rather unpleasant to read.

Henry James famously described certain Victorian novels as "loose baggy monsters." While I firmly dispute that description for magnificent works like Bleak House, Great Expectations, Middlemarch, and many others, it fits Barnaby Rudge perfectly. There is no coherent plot here. Instead, it is more of a series of loosely connected situations that emerge from the chaos, play their part on the stage, and then sink back into the chaos again.

Even when Dickens attempts to tie up the loose ends in the final chapters, he seems to do so very casually and inexpertly. It's as if he suddenly realized that he needed to bring this work to an end and simply threw everything he needed to conclude it haphazardly into the final chapters.

The saving grace of the novel, as with most of Dickens's works, is a series of memorable characters. They are nicely drawn, although perhaps less complex as individuals compared to those in his later works. They almost, but not quite, make the novel worth reading.

It was the best of Dickens,

for it contained some of his most brilliant writing. The descriptions were vivid, the characters were complex and engaging.

Yet, it was also the worst of Dickens,

as the narrative was often slow and meandering. The beginnings seemed to go on forever, testing the patience of the reader.

It was the age of good endings,

with a conclusion that was both satisfying and thought-provoking.

But it was also the age of interminably slow beginnings,

making it difficult for the reader to get invested in the story.

It was the epoch of great action sequences,

which added excitement and drama to the plot.

However, it was also the epoch of overly elaborate character work,

which sometimes detracted from the overall pace of the story.

In short, it was one of those vastly uneven books that are very hard to categorize.

It had its strengths and weaknesses,

making it a challenging but ultimately rewarding read.

Rated 2.5/5.

3.5 - It is Dickens after all

"Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of honour, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means. Those that cannot, are bad; and may be counted so at once, and left alone."

It seems almost unjust to award a Dickens novel only three stars. I did have a certain level of enjoyment while reading Barnaby Rudge, but I simply couldn't bring myself to truly love it. One of my major concerns with the book centered around the titular character, Barnaby Rudge himself. Dickens is undoubtedly a master of characterization. He has the unique ability to make readers fall in love with and become deeply invested in fictional characters like no other author. However, in this case, I just couldn't establish a connection with Barnaby. In fact, a significant portion of the novel focused on characters with whom I couldn't relate. While I was engaged by the action and drama of the riots and found the character interactions entertaining, especially the truly funny dialogue between Hugh and Simon, I still found these characters to be rather detestable and didn't really care much about whether or not they met a bad end. The characters whom I could envision myself loving seemed to be on the periphery. Although the ending did salvage the situation to some extent, it simply wasn't sufficient. Gabriel Varden and Joe Willet were two characters of whom I wanted more! To me, they were the quintessential Dickens characters; real, flawed, yet striving. I would have relished more of them, more of the murder mystery that hung over the characters of the Warren, and could have done with less of the riots, lootings, and fires.

Is this the least-read Dickens novel? According to Goodreads, the answer is yes. There are only 121 reviews for this one, while Martin Chuzzlewit is a close second with 141. The reason? Lack of cinematic exposure hasn't helped. Disney can't turn an historical narrative about the Gordon Riots of 1780 into a feel-good schmaltz-fest, especially when the protagonist has a sinister talking raven that inspired Poe's poem about a raven (I forget what it was called) as a best mate.

A silent adaptation was made in 1915 (Crikey! Our prison is burning down!), followed by a BBC production in 1960 which isn't a hot topic on those I-Love-the-60s clips shows. But I digress. It is what I do well. I am not here to write fluent, entertaining reviews with educational content. Or to take paragraph breaks.

Barnaby Rudge was Dickens's attempt to branch out as a "serious" novelist after the picaresque modes he'd written in prior (although his previous books contained hard-hitting content). To do this, he chose to imitate Sir Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian. So what we have here is an awkward mash-up of the romantic Scott plots, detailed historical re-enactments, and the usual irrepressible Dickens comic mischief.

This mix makes for an uncertain novel. The characters don't impose themselves on your cerebrum as in his prior books (except perhaps Barnaby or Lord Gordon), and the three central plots—the romance, the riot, and the ghost story—don't sit comfortably. So this would seem to be for the most patient Dickens devotees. When it works, it soars: the riot scenes (esp. the prison break) are riveting, and Lord George's hopeless cronies fall victim to a satirical evisceration. Barnaby almost succeeds as the moral or emotional crux of the novel, but as an "idiot," he isn't that vividly rendered. The raven steals the show with its chant: "I'm a devil I'm a devil I'm devil! No popery no popery!"

In my ambitious project of reading all of Charles Dickens' works in the chronological order of their publication, I have just completed reading Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of 'Eighty, which happens to be one of my least favorite books by Dickens thus far.

This was Dickens' very first historical novel, predominantly set during the Lord Gordon Riots of 1780, those infamous anti-Catholic riots that shook London. If one were to seek a central point of this tale, it would undoubtedly be the Maypole Inn in the village of Chigwell in 1775. It was here that the proprietor, John Willet, and his cronies gathered on a stormy night to discuss a well-known local murder that had taken place twenty-two years ago. The victim was Reuben Haredale, who had once owned an estate in the area, which was now the residence of his brother, Geoffrey, and his niece, Emma Haredale.

And, as is typical of Charles Dickens' writing, there is a plethora of colorful characters who come and go throughout the story. One such character is Barnaby Rudge, along with his widowed mother and his pet raven, Grip.

The story then advances five years to a wintry evening early in 1780. On the twenty-seventh anniversary of the murder of Reuben Haredale, a ghost is sighted in the churchyard, bearing a resemblance to the murdered Reuben. John Willet feels that Geoffrey Haredale should hear this story. Three men who have lost their way to London are accommodated at the Maypole. It is later revealed that they are, in fact, Lord George Gordon, his secretary, and a servant. The next day, they depart for London, inciting anti-Catholic sentiment and recruiting protestant volunteers.

As I do not wish to delve deeper into the plot, I will conclude here. This is a period of history when, in 1778, the Catholic Relief Act was enacted to ease the restrictions on Britain's Catholics. However, the Protestant Association, led by Lord George Gordon, vehemently opposed this act. It was on June 22, 1780, that the Protestant Association marched to the House of Commons and was joined by a riotous mob, terrorizing London for the next few days. During this time, many lives were lost, and there were public executions. It was Charles Dickens' first historical novel, and it introduced me to a piece of history that I was previously unfamiliar with.

To surround anything, no matter how monstrous or ridiculous it may be, with an air of mystery is to endow it with a secret charm and an irresistible power of attraction for the crowd. Curiosity is, indeed, a master-passion. Awakening it, gratifying it gradually, and yet leaving something always in suspense is the surest way to establish a hold on mankind.

Charles Dickens, in Barnaby Rudge, was referring to the methods of the No Popery anti-Catholic faction that sowed seeds of mystery and anger towards the Catholic church. However, he could just as easily have been discussing the technique of writing for the masses, especially in serial form.

Barnaby Rudge was written in 1841 but harks back to 1780 when the Lord Gordon (No Popery) Riots took place in London. Since the violence erupted when citizens were enraged by the government's inaction, reading about them now is timely, considering the January 6th capitol attack. In London, 40,000 men acted under the ultimate leadership of Lord Gordon. The riots are described as part of the plot in the second half of the novel. In reality, 300 to 1,000 people were killed during the riots, and many homes and businesses were destroyed, often by fire.

There are several major themes that I identified, including older generation members attempting to hinder "untoward" love relationships in the younger generation, the general mistreatment of youth by adults, and the delight that people take in taking advantage of the mentally handicapped. Of course, Dickens counters that last sentiment with the great tenderness he elicits towards them in the reader. In this way, Barnaby Rudge is a precursor to novels like Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.

I've read Dickens intermittently, and I don't recall scenes of a sexual nature, as here when Mr. Dennis, and perhaps other men, seemingly head with lustful thoughts towards the house where the three primary female characters are imprisoned.

My favorite character here has to be John Willet, the owner of the pub house, with his impervious superiority and clever language - he makes me laugh! Overall, despite the ominous subject matter of Barnaby Rudge, humor abounds.

As well as Dickens writes love matches and scenes of young men and women falling in love, it's interesting to me that he makes these such a small part of his stories. I realize he wasn't writing romance novels, but it seems to me his novels would be of even greater general interest - then and now - with more time spent on couples in love.

As I've written in many of my reviews of Victorian novels, which I generally love, there are some aspects of them that can be frustrating. To me, the worst aspect, and it applies to Barnaby Rudge, is that these tales almost always have a positive and pretty ending. This redirects the reader's interest from "what will happen?" to the more mundane "who will make it happen and how?"

Additionally, I become irritated with the overdone effort to convince the reader that a particular character is truly bad. While modern books relatively quickly establish the hero vs. the baddies, Victorian writers felt compelled to reiterate the faults and evil of characters ad nauseam.

As we know, Dickens often writes child heroes, such as Oliver Twist, Pip, and the young people in The Old Curiosity Shop. Here, an adult who is child-like due to his intellectual disability takes on that very moving role - Barnaby Rudge. There is a great scene with Barnaby in the prison cell crying when he believes his beloved raven Grip is to be killed by one of the prison guards. And later, again with Barnaby in prison, Dickens is at his best. He has Barnaby contemplating his doomed fate, but finally, there is some solace.

"But the moon came up slowly in all her gentle glory, and the stars looked out... and through the small grated window... the face of heaven shone bright and merciful... the quiet sky... seemed to smile upon the earth in sadness, as if the night, more thoughtful than the day, looked down in sorrow on the sufferings... of men. (Barnaby) let its peace soak deep into his heart."

With Sean Barrett's narration and the Wordsworth Classics edition, I'm delving into Charles Dickens' first historical novel, a work that often goes unnoticed.

Given that my initial encounter with Dickens was through A Tale of Two Cities, which then led me on a wonderful journey through the rest of his literary works, I'm eager to discover how this early historical piece measures up.

The way it commences is captivating. There's a dark night, a mysterious stranger, a ghost story shared by the tavern fire, a kind locksmith, a murder, and Barnaby Rudge, who, as G.K. Chesterton described, is an idiot. In today's politically correct terms, we'd say "mentally challenged." I must admit, I was taken aback by the bold choice of having such a character as the titular one.

As I'm about two-thirds of the way through the book, I'm struck by the might of Dickens' writing as the mob sweeps through London and the neighboring villages. We follow Barnaby, Gabriel V., and several others, including a mysterious one-armed man. (Well, we already know who that one-armed man is, but that's not Dickens' fault. It's just that this trick has been used frequently since his era.)

This novel offers a fascinating perspective not only on the anti-Catholic riots that I was previously unaware of but also on Dickens' growing mastery of his craft. Having read his books in a somewhat reverse order, I can see how A Tale of Two Cities will later emerge as such a powerful work from the pen that crafted this blend of gothic and historical fiction.

One thing is abundantly clear. Dickens has an aversion to revolutions, at least those of the mob rule variety. After reading both A Tale of Two Cities and this book, the reason becomes evident.

**"Fathers and Sons" in Barnaby Rudge**

Mr. Turgenev was fortunate that Dickens chose a different title for his novel. "Fathers and Sons" would have been a fitting title for Barnaby Rudge. The novel explores the complex relationships between fathers and sons. We see four to five such relationships, most of which are dysfunctional.

John Willet tyrannizes his son Joe, while John Chester treats his sons as means to an end. Mr. Rudge, a murderer, has no disinterested feelings for his son Barnaby. Gabriel Varden, though more benevolent, is ineffective. His apprentice Simon plots against him.

The sons rebel against their fathers. Edward incurs his father's curse, Simon assaults Varden and kidnaps his daughter, and Joe gives a thrashing to a Maypole crony. Even Hugh rebels against society as a whole. Dickens's descriptions of the Gordon Riots are graphic and terrifying.

Dickens may have understood the reasons for the rebellion, but in the end, his Victorian mindset led him to believe in reform through the state. The outcome of the riots restores peace in the Varden family.

Barnaby Rudge has its flaws, but it follows its major ideas with vengeance. It shows Dickens's skill at creating complex characters like Hugh and Mr. Dennis. Overall, it is an unjustly overlooked work.

I’ve been delving into a playlist of Charles Dickens novels in chronological order, or at least the order presented by Wikipedia. I completed The Old Curiosity Shop, a novel once popular upon release but less so today. Now, I’ve just finished Barnaby Rudge, a novel not renowned for its popularity at any time. In fact, if you were to ask a thousand people to name a Dickens novel off the top of their heads and your life depended on no one saying Barnaby Rudge, I doubt you’d have much to worry about.

At the start, I struggled to get into this one, but it gradually grew on me. A typical Dickens novel is generally quite long, and this one was no exception. It was bound to draw me in eventually, and I believe it did.

After reading this, I’m finding it difficult to organize my thoughts. A wise reviewer pointed out that much of Dickens’s writing depicts a realm of fantasy, and despite this being a historical novel from the author’s perspective, I don’t think it’s an exception. We have all the eccentric, over-the-top characters with fanciful names that often slyly reference some characteristic or other. Also, Barnaby is clearly a changeling, and if that isn’t a fairy tale reference, I don’t know what is.

This book is definitely not tightly plotted. When publishing in installments, as Dickens did, a carefully plotted novel might not even be possible. Like other Dickens novels I’ve read, it’s filled with multiple characters and interweaving storylines, all cobbled together in a way that leaves me unsure if the title character is actually the main character. I always thought the main character was the one who made the critical decisions and carried out the actions that determined the outcome of the story. Barnaby is like a leaf on the wind, being carried wherever it blows him. I’m honestly not sure who the main character is or if there even is one. So, I’m uncertain if I should say I enjoyed this novel or this collection of interconnected stories that have been spliced together into a whole.

I guess if there’s one central thing in the story, it’s the Gordon Riots. I did read up on them before starting this book, but it wasn’t until the second half that we even got to them and the plot started to percolate. The Gordon Riots were, on the surface, about people being upset that the British government had decided to be a little less harsh on Catholics, which was certainly the reason Lord George Gordon was upset. However, the actual reason most of the rioters were out there was that they were poor and struggling, and they realized that a small percentage of the population was not and that the entire system was set up to protect the privileges of those people. A very timeless complaint.

As for Barnaby, the simpleminded “idiot” with his pet raven, he wanders in and out of the story almost randomly. He’s referred to as an idiot because the word wasn’t a straight-up insult back then, as it is today, but a technical term. It’s interesting that almost every word used to describe someone like Barnaby has eventually become a word we should never use if we don’t want to be nasty. The terms fool, moron, imbecile… actually, a whole thesaurus full of words all started out as descriptive words not intended to be insults at all. In any case, Barnaby surprised me later in the book. I had the impression, in the beginning, that his attention span was so short that you couldn’t trust him to stick to anything for five minutes without being distracted, yet he was put in charge of guard duty, which he stuck to all day. He actually had a character arc, in the end, which made him a lot more likable. I think his pet raven, Grip, was supposed to capture my imagination more than it did. Maybe it would have if my name were Edgar Allen Poe.

Barnaby’s dad, the mysterious stranger who gets the plot rolling, is a hard character to pin down. I could go on and on about him, but it would all come back to the fact that he’s completely, certifiably insane. Very little of what he did made much sense unless self-destruction had been his aim from the beginning. I understand that he’s tormented by guilt and all that, but his response to it is completely unhinged, unless, of course, the ghost of his ex-employer is really haunting him. The blind man who isn’t inspirational, Stagg, despite being morally challenged himself, was a breath of fresh air when he tried to reason with the elder Rudge about the choices he had made.

There are a lot of painful relationships between fathers and sons in this book. Charles, did you love your dad?

Old John Willet was a strange one. I think much of the time he was intended to be comic relief, though I didn’t find him particularly funny myself. I found him kind of sad and pathetic. Even before the rape of the Maypole, he came across as a not terribly likable know-it-all with only a teaspoon or two more intelligence than Barnaby. I suppose I should try harder to get into the spirit of the thing and appreciate this fellow a little more, but, not to get personal, if you’ve ever watched someone close to you fade away in the grip of dementia, you might find a character like this less funny. I’m not saying that Willet is actually a depiction of dementia, he just kind of feels like it.

Hugh ended up surprising me in the end. Rather than being a completely evil caricature, he kind of redeemed himself.

Ned Dennis, the hangman of Tyburn, is an interesting villain. A total scumbag who seems to have a master plan that you know isn’t going to end well. By contrast, there is a wonderful book about a historical executioner named Frantz Schmidt of Nuremberg who is, in many ways, the opposite of Dennis. It’s called The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century by Joel F. Harrington. It’s an absolutely fascinating character study, based on the man’s diaries.

Most of the female characters in the story, Barnaby’s self-sacrificing mother, the elderly Mrs. Varden, her beautiful daughter Dolly, and Emma Haredale, came across to me as rather weak stock characters. I actually found Miggs to be kind of interesting. Sure, she’s shrill, selfish, petty, sycophantic, not very bright, and conniving, but actually kind of complex in her way. Nature didn’t favor her with the type of body that would’ve made her attractive at the time, but we don’t really know that she was ugly otherwise. Thin is in these days. She comes across, in the beginning, as a bit of a man hater, and given the opportunities afforded to women, or lack thereof, back then, how could you really blame her? Later, it becomes clear that she’s really just sad, frustrated, and hopelessly, pathetically in love with a man that doesn’t deserve anybody’s love, the vain, delusional narcissist Simon Tappertit. It would be enough to turn anyone mean and nasty. I felt sorry for her in the end, which is not, I suspect, what Dickens intended.

There are some powerful moments in this book. It takes you into the chaos of that time and gives you a sense of it like no history book ever could. At times, you feel like you’re there watching the unspeakable, traumatic violence unfold, and you understand how the people could have been so scarred by it. You’re reminded how so many lost everything during those riots. It all seems like a historical footnote now, but it was huge, overwhelming, catastrophic, and life-changing to the people who had to endure it.

All in all, I understand why this book didn’t make the Dickens A list. It’s still an interesting read. It still took me on a strange, winding, and memorable journey, and some of the people and events I encountered along the way will definitely stay with me. My knowledge of eighteenth-century British history has been padded out a bit, though I don’t think the Gordon Riots are a subject I can easily work into a conversation.

Barnaby Rudge is perhaps the least well-known novel of Charles Dickens. The lack of television or film adaptations and its (current) unavailability in the Italian market (except in libraries and some second-hand markets) certainly do not work in its favor.

Barnaby Rudge is the first of the two historical novels by the English author and is set in a historical period that I personally did not know: the Protestant and anti-Catholic riots of May 1780 known as the Gordon Riots. It is "officially" composed of two parts, interconnected yet separate at the same time, with a five-year time jump dividing them.

In the first part, the story revolves around the tavern "The Golden Key" in the village of Eppings, on the road to London and a few miles from the city, where we witness the events of a small community of characters overshadowed by the mystery of the murder of Reuben Haredale, which occurred 22 years before the story begins.

In the second part, after a five-year jump, the great story erupts and the events of the characters intertwine with the anti-Catholic uprising that terrorized and set fire to the city of London for four days.

The book starts slowly, we are introduced to the various characters, their vicissitudes, their interconnections, and although Barnaby Rudge gives his name to the novel, he is not the true protagonist. The real protagonist is the crowd, which like a stormy sea roars, sweeps away, and shatters everything in its path.

The novel is full of unforgettable characters, all well characterized and belonging to the different social classes of the time. Alongside the fictional characters, we find those who really lived, like Lord George Gordon. There are so many (as in every good Dickensian novel) that it is impossible to remember them all, but some remain imprinted in the mind and are memorable: Barnaby, a young idiot, raised by his mother,渴望阳光和生活, with peacock feathers on his hat, who has as an inseparable friend a talkative raven, Grip, an unforgettable and fantastic animal; the Varden family composed of the father Gabriel, a likable blacksmith, the waspish and crazy wife Martha, the beautiful daughter Dolly, the envious and petulant servant Miggs (who made me amazed at how Dickens sketched her) and the pretentious and stupid apprentice Simon Tappertit; the innkeeper John Willet and his son Joe; the "centaur" Hugh, the all-rounder of the tavern, "the ripe fruit of the black tree" of the gallows; Dennis, the executioner; then Sir John Chester, Geoffrey Haredale, Emma Haredale, Edward Chester, and many others.

This novel is a good historical novel, and Dickens is faithful in telling us the facts that happened in those four days when the crowd was at the center of the events. The crowd, composed of derelicts and the lowest of society, faceless men and women who are swept away by passions, hatreds (even personal), fanaticism, ignorance, revenge, and cowardice, becomes the protagonist of crazy acts, destruction, arson, looting, devastation, and unnecessary deaths against the Catholics unjustly accused of having had the restrictions against them abolished.

A novel that is a mix of mystery, emotion, entertainment, tragedy, comedy, and romanticism, in which Dickens magnificently描绘s the city and the riots, making them seem like cinematic scenes, especially the attack on Parliament, on private houses, the destruction of the tavern, and the unforgettable attack and fire on Newgate Prison.

This book has confirmed my positive judgment on this author, unrivaled in his style, in describing the city, and in creating characters as only he knows how to do. In short, a novel a bit different from the other Dickensian books but that the lovers of the English author should not miss.

Well, it's better to be idiots than wise like you! You don't see the world of shadows, like the one who lives in dreams, no. Nor do you have eyes in the knobby panes of glass, nor swift phantoms when the wind blows, nor do you hear voices in the air, nor do you see men walking in the sky... No! I lead a happier life than yours, despite all your intelligence. You are the stupid ones; we are the enlightened ones. Ah, ah! I wouldn't change with you, as intelligent as you are... No really!

This is a captivating historical novel that artfully weaves together the personal and the political in truly fascinating ways, although at times it can seem a bit unwieldy.

Set against the backdrop of the tumultuous anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780, the story follows a diverse cast of characters. Among them is the simple-minded Barnaby and his beloved pet raven, Grip. They unwittingly find themselves caught up in one of London's most violent upheavals.

Just as in his other renowned historical novel, A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens masterfully depicts the mob mentality and how rapidly a civilized society can descend into chaos. The characters are quintessentially Dickensian, with a colorful array including a hangman, a blind man, an honest locksmith, and a charming country inn. The titular Barnaby is one of literature's most poignant innocent figures, and his companion Grip (who served as inspiration for Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven") offers much-needed comic relief.

However, the plot does have its meandering moments, with multiple subplots vying for the reader's attention. The pacing can be uneven, and at times the historical elements overshadow the personal narratives. Nevertheless, despite these flaws, it remains a classic Dickens' novel, filled with his unique storytelling charm and social commentary.