Our Mutual Friend

Content Warning: Both the novel and guide contain discussions of alcohol addiction, death by suicide, and antisemitism.

One evening in the fall, a waterman named Gaffer Hexam and his daughter, Lizzie Hexam, take their small boat along the River Thames in London. An anxious Lizzie steers the boat as her father fishes a corpse from the water. He takes money from the dead man’s pockets. A man from a passing boat calls out to Hexam; they are seemingly rivals, as Hexam warns that the man—unlike him—is a thief. Hexam does not regard his theft as a crime, as the dead have no “use for money” (4).

Elsewhere in London, a couple named the Veneerings are introduced to high society. They have recently become wealthy, and a man named Twemlow is introducing them to other wealthy people, including the lawyer Mortimer Lightwood, his friend Eugene Wrayburn, and Mr. and Mrs. Podsnap. At the gathering, Mortimer tells a story about a man named Harmon, “a tremendous old rascal who made his money by Dust” (13). Harmon was an abusive figure whose cruelty to his wife and daughter drove his son