The Battle of Life
Cover of the first edition of The Battle of Life from 1846. | |
Author | Charles Dickens |
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Original title | The Battle of Life: A Love Story |
Illustrator | Charles Green |
Country | England |
Language | English |
Genre | Novel |
Publisher | Bradbury and Evans |
Publication date | 1846 |
Media type | Print (hardback) |
Pages | 116 pp |
Preceded by | The Cricket on the Hearth |
Followed by | The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain |
Text | The Battle of Life at Wikisource |
The Battle of Life: A Love Story is an 1846 novella by Charles Dickens.[1] It is the fourth of his five "Christmas Books", coming after The Cricket on the Hearth and followed by The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain.
Setting
The setting is an English village that stands on the site of an historic battle. Some characters refer to the battle as a metaphor for the struggles of life, hence the title.
Reception
It is one of Dickens's lesser-known works and has never attained any high level of popularity, in contrast to the other of his Christmas Books.[2]
Plot summary
Two sisters, Grace and Marion, live happily in an English village with their two servants, Clemency Newcome and Ben Britain, and their good-natured widower father Dr Jeddler. Dr Jeddler is a man whose philosophy is to treat life as a farce. Marion, the younger sister, is betrothed to Alfred Heathfield, Jeddler's ward, who is leaving the village to complete his studies. Alfred entrusts Marion to Grace's care and makes a promise to return to win her hand.
Michael Warden, a libertine who is about to leave the country, is thought by the solicitors Snitchey and Craggs to be about to seduce the younger sister into an elopement. Clemency spies Marion one night at a clandestine rendezvous with Warden, and Marion disappears on the very day that Alfred is due to return.
Six years later, Clemency is married to Ben and the two have set up a tavern in the village. After recovering fom her heartbreak at Warden's elopement with Marion, Grace has married Alfred and she bears him a daughter, also called Marion. On the day of the child's birth, Marion re-appears and explains her disappearance: she had not eloped with Warden, but had moved to live with her aunt Martha so as to allow Alfred the chance to fall in love with Grace. The man she had herself loved had not been Alfred, but Warden. Marion is reunited with her family. Warden returns, and is forgiven by Dr Jeddler. Warden and Marion are married.
Stage adaptation
An adaptation of The Battle of Life by Albert Richard Smith was produced with success at the Surrey Theatre in 1846.[citation needed]
References
- ^ Glancy, Ruth (1988). "The Shaping of "The Battle of Life": Dickens' Manuscript Revisions". Dickens Studies Annual. 17: 67–89. ISSN 0084-9812.
- ^ Morgentaler, Goldie (2011). "The Doppelganger Effect: Dickens, Heredity, and the Double in "The Battle of Life"". Dickens Studies Annual. 42: 159–175. ISSN 0084-9812.
External links
- The Battle of Life at Internet Archive.
- The Battle of Life at Project Gutenberg
- The Battle of Life public domain audiobook at LibriVox
- The Battle of Life - Searchable HTML version.
- The Battle of Life - Easy to read HTML version.
- v
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- Bibliography
- The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836–1837)
- Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy's Progress (1837–1839)
- Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839)
- The Old Curiosity Shop (1840–1841)
- Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty (1841)
- The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1843–1844)
- Dombey and Son (1846–1848)
- David Copperfield (1849–1850)
- Bleak House (1852–1853)
- Hard Times: For These Times (1854)
- Little Dorrit (1855–1857)
- A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
- Great Expectations (1860–1861)
- Our Mutual Friend (1864–1865)
- The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)
- A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (1843)
- The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In (1844)
- The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home (1845)
- The Battle of Life: A Love Story (1846)
- The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, A Fancy for Christmas-Time (1848)
- To Be Read at Dusk (1852)
- "The Long Voyage" (1853)
- "The Signal-Man" (1866)
- "The Trial for Murder" (1865)
collections
- Sketches by "Boz," Illustrative of Every-day Life and Every-day People (1833–1836)
- The Mudfog Papers (1837–1838)
- Master Humphrey's Clock (1840–1841)
- American Notes for General Circulation (1842)
- Pictures from Italy (1846)
- The Life of Our Lord (1846–1849)
- A Child's History of England (1851–1853)
- The Uncommercial Traveller (1860–1861)
- Letters (1821–1870)
- The Frozen Deep (1856)
- No Thoroughfare (1867)
- Bentley's Miscellany (1836–1838)
- Master Humphrey's Clock (1840–1841)
- The Daily News (1846–1870)
- Household Words (1850–1859)
- All the Year Round (1859–1870)
- "A House to Let" (1858)
- "The Haunted House" (1859)
- "A Message from the Sea" (1860)
- "Mugby Junction" (1866)
- No Thoroughfare (1867)
Parents | |
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Brothers | |
Partners | |
Children |
- Epitaph of Charles Irving Thornton
- Bleak House
- Tavistock House
- Gads Hill Place
- Grip (raven)
- Dickens fair
- Dickens and Little Nell (statue)
- Charles Dickens in His Study (1859 painting)
- Dickens of London (1976 miniseries)
- Dickens in America (2005 documentary)
- The Invisible Woman (2013 film)
- Dickensian (2015 TV series)
- The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017 film)
- Category