In this carefully crafted novel, Dickens reveals the complexity of London society in the enterprising 1840s as he takes the listener into the business firm and home of one of its most representative patriarchs, Paul Dombey. A sensitive family drama unfolds between this stern father, his two children and aloof wife in which time and fateful events bring a slow, inexorable pressure to bear upon the hearts of all. in Paul Dombey we witness the force of social and personal arrogance ("For Dombey is as proud, Ma'am, as Lucifer") wrestling with his own stubborn, but not unredeemable, heart.

Charles Dickens (1812 –1870) was born in Landport, Portsea, England, the second of eight children in a family continually plagued by debt. A legacy brought release from the nightmare of debtors’ prison and child labor and afforded him two years of formal schooling. He worked as an attorney’s clerk and newspaper reporter until his early writings brought him the amazing success that was to be his for the remainder of his life.