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“I've read this the last finished novel by Charles Dickens a couple of times now and still I find something new that astonishes me. It was written in monthly numbers and published in two volumes in 1865 (Chapman & Hall) and I think it's easy to see that it was meant to keep the interest of the audience over some time, even for quite a while. The highlights give it away, so to speak, but it's quite all right with me as this tale of greed, avarice, love, passions, murder, tec., etc. is riveting even for one who has read it several times. The characters still manage to engage me even though some of them, as always with Dickens, are rather one-dimensional. That's especially obvious in the women characters, but the male villains, Riderhood, Headstone, Wegg and young Hexam are awesome in all their evilness or just extreme selfishness.As to the women characters, a woman like the wilful and apparently greedy go-getter, Bella Wilfer - who also is one of the heroines - is very interesting. I suppose she shares a bulk of character traits with Dickens' young mistress. In the novel she is described in full with a few words: "With an exceedingly pretty figure and face, but with an impatient and petulant expression both in her face and in her shoulders."”
