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Title: Not your first Dickens
Review: There are many pages in this book that are still alive, but here is a novel that, I'm afraid, would tend to confirm the suspicions of some readers who haven't read Dickens yet -- that he's wordy. This gets two stars, but that's because this book is being compared to other novels by Dickens. If it were by some Victorian unknown, we'd be whooping about a rediscovered goodie! Mostly I enjoyed it, but I doubt very much I'll ever read the first 200 pages or so word-for-word. I should note that I didn't read an edition that had the Penguin editorial notes.
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