Amy Dorrit was born in the prison and is called Little Dorrit. She grows up as a girl who cares for others, with a tender heart and is practical as to getting enough money to eat and live with her father in the Marshalsea prison for debtors in London, the emotional and practical centre of her family. She is 22 years old when the story opens. Arthur Clennam encounters her after returning home from a 20-year absence, ready to begin his life anew.
Little Dorrit satirises some shortcomings of both government and society, including the institution of debtors' prisons, where debtors were imprisoned, unable to work and yet incarcerated until they had repaid their debts. The prison in this case is the Marshalsea, where Dickens' own father had been imprisoned. Dickens is also critical of the impotent bureaucracy of the British government, in this novel in the form of the fictional "Circumlocution Office." Dickens also satirises the stratification of society that results from the British class system.
This case laminate collector's edition includes a Victorian-inspired dust jacket.