Overview

This novel is about Nemo, a minor character who dies early in Dickens's Bleak House and is buried in a pauper graveyard in London. It turns out that Nemo, originally Captain Hawdon, has important relationships with the main characters of the novel. Lady Dedlock, mother of Hawdon's child Esther Summerson, flees from her husband and dies at the gates to this graveyard. Hawdon: A Prequel to Bleak House brings Nemo to life, consistent with the clues laid down by Dickens. Included in this, we follow Captain Hawdon in Afghanistan during the first Afghan war of 1839 to 1842 and then in Ireland during the great famine of the late 1840s. This is a novel about dedication in relationships, the scourge of disease, and anticolonialism in Victorian times.

Full Product Details

9781638298137

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

When Ralph F. Smith was 13 years old his room teacher read the students David Copperfield. Ralph immediately became a fan of Dickens, rereading all his fiction every decade. In the 1970s, he wrote a MA thesis on Dickens's portrayal of the Victorian Underworld. Later, he registered in a PhD program at the University of Ottawa and wrote a dissertation on Dickens's portrayal and metaphoric use of fever. An article derived from this dissertation appeared in Literature and Medicine in 2015. Ralph also worked as a policy director for the Governments of Saskatchewan and Canada, receiving the Queen Elizabeth Golden Jubilee Medal for his work on homelessness. Ralph has been writing articles, short stories, poetry, and novels for decades. His previously published novels are Bright Deep (2013), Concession Street Secrets (2019), and Twitch: The Foundling's Quest (2021). His poems and stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. He has been living in Ottawa since 1987, has two children, three stepchildren, and is married to Dr. Fionnuala O'Kelly.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available