ABSTRACT

Our Mutual Friend, Dickeঐs's last completed novel, was begun in the winter of 1 863-4. As early as August 1 863, Dickens was eager to finish his contribution to that year's Christmas number of All the Year Round so that he could begin the novel: 'When I can clear the Christmas stone out of the road, I think I can dash into it on the grander journey,' he wrote to Forster (30 August, Nonesuch 3.361 ) . His excitement is obvious in another letter he wrote to Forster in October:

I am exceedingly anxious to begin my book. I am bent upon getting to work at it. I want to prepare it for the spring; but I am determined not to begin to publish with less than five numbers done. I see my opening perfectly, with the one main line on which the story is to turn; and if I don't strike while the iron (meaning myself) is hot, I shall drift off again, and have to go through all this uneasiness once more.