ABSTRACT
In its concluding double number, Our Mutual Friend closes the mystery of the Harmon fortune by having John Harmon finally undeceive Wegg, who is crushed to learn that his copy of the will is worthless and that, consequently, he cannot extort even a brass farthing from Boffin. The story of Our Mutual Friend's commercial failures and successes deserves a serious hearing before we toss the novel, alongside Wegg, into the scavenger's cart. Our Mutual Friend was published at a very different time, and it cannot have helped the novel's commercial prospects that it appeared amid England's worst economic conditions since the mid-1840s. Considering the economic climate and the state of the British book trade, then, Charles Dickens could hardly have picked a less propitious time to issue a new 20-number novel, and these conditions probably account for at least some of Our MutualFriend's commercial struggles.
