Dombey and Son

Dombey and Son

By Charles Dickens.

Table of Contents

1. Titlepage
2. Imprint
3. Dedication
4. Preface of 1848
5. Preface of 1867
6. Dombey and Son
   1. I: Dombey and Son
   2. II: In Which Timely Provision Is Made for an Emergency That Will Sometimes Arise in the Best-Regulated Families
   3. III: In Which Mr. Dombey, as a Man and a Father, Is Seen at the Head of the Home-Department
   4. IV: In Which Some More First Appearances Are Made on the Stage of These Adventures
   5. V: Paul’s Progress and Christening
   6. VI: Paul’s Second Deprivation
   7. VII: A Bird’s-Eye Glimpse of Miss Tox’s Dwelling-Place: Also of the State of Miss Tox’s Affections
   8. VIII: Paul’s Further Progress, Growth and Character
   9. IX: In Which the Wooden Midshipman Gets Into Trouble
   10. X: Containing the Sequel of the Midshipman’s Disaster
   11. XI: Paul’s Introduction to a New Scene
   12. XII: Paul’s Education
   13. XIII: Shipping Intelligence and Office Business
   14. XIV: Paul Grows More and More Old-Fashioned, and Goes Home for the Holidays
   15. XV: Amazing Artfulness of Captain Cuttle, and a New Pursuit for Walter Gay
   16. XVI: What the Waves Were Always Saying
   17. XVII: Captain Cuttle Does a Little Business for the Young People
   18. XVIII: Father and Daughter
   19. XIX: Walter Goes Away
   20. XX: Mr. Dombey Goes Upon a Journey
   21. XXI: New Faces
   22. XXII: A Trifle of Management by Mr. Carker the Manager
   23. XXIII: Florence Solitary, and the Midshipman Mysterious
   24. XXIV: The Study of a Loving Heart
   25. XXV: Strange News of Uncle Sol
   26. XXVI: Shadows of the Past and Future
   27. XXVII: Deeper Shadows
   28. XXVIII: Alterations
   29. XXIX: The Opening of the Eyes of Mrs. Chick
   30. XXX: The Interval Before the Marriage
   31. XXXI: The Wedding
   32. XXXII: The Wooden Midshipman Goes to Pieces
   33. XXXIII: Contrasts
   34. XXXIV: Another Mother and Daughter
   35. XXXV: The Happy Pair
   36. XXXVI: Housewarming
   37. XXXVII: More Warnings Than One
   38. XXXVIII: Miss Tox Improves an Old Acquaintance
   39. XXXIX: Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner
   40. XL: Domestic Relations
   41. XLI: New Voices in the Waves
   42. XLII: Confidential and Accidental
   43. XLIII: The Watches of the Night
   44. XLIV: A Separation
   45. XLV: The Trusty Agent
   46. XLVI: Recognizant and Reflective
   47. XLVII: The Thunderbolt
   48. XLVIII: The Flight of Florence
   49. XLIX: The Midshipman Makes a Discovery
   50. L: Mr. Toots’s Complaint
   51. LI: Mr. Dombey and the World
   52. LII: Secret Intelligence
   53. LIII: More Intelligence
   54. LIV: The Fugitives
   55. LV: Rob the Grinder Loses His Place
   56. LVI: Several People Delighted, and the Game Chicken Disgusted
   57. LVII: Another Wedding
   58. LVIII: After a Lapse
   59. LIX: Retribution
   60. LX: Chiefly Matrimonial
   61. LXI: Relenting
   62. LXII: Final
7. Colophon
8. Uncopyright

Imprint

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

Preface of 1848

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 the journey we have just concluded.

If any of them have felt a sorrow in one of the principal incidents on which this fiction turns, I hope it may be a sorrow of that sort which endears the sharers in it, one to another. This is not unselfish in me. I may claim to have felt it, at least as much as anybody else; and I would fain be remembered kindly for my part in the experience.

Devonshire Terrace, Twenty-Fourth March, 1848.

Preface of 1867

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) of correctly observing so much as the faces of men, is a general one by any means. The two commonest mistakes in judgement that I suppose to arise from the former default, are, the confounding of shyness with arrogance⁠—a very common mistake indeed⁠—and the not understanding that an obstinate nature exists in a perpetual struggle with itself.

Mr. Dombey undergoes no violent change, either in this book, or in real life. A sense of his injustice is within him, all along. The more he represses it, the more unjust he necessarily is. Internal shame and external circumstances may bring the contest to a close in a week, or a day; but, it has been a contest for years, and is only fought out after a long balance of victory.

I began this book by the Lake of Geneva, and went on with it for some