Penguin Classics e-books give you the best possible editions of Charles Dickens's novels, including all the original illustrations, useful and informative introductions, the definitive, accurate text as it was meant to be published, a chronology of Dickens's life and notes that fill in the background to the book. To Paul Dombey, business is all and money can do anything. He runs his family life as he runs his firm: coldly, calculatingly and commercially. The only person he cares for is his little son, while his motherless daughter Florence craves affection from her unloving father, who sees her only as a 'base coin that couldn't be invested'. As Dombey's callousness extends to others - from his defiant second wife Edith to Florence's admirer Walter Gay - he sows the seeds of his own destruction. Can this heartless businessman be redeemed? A compelling depiction of a man imprisoned by his own pride, Dombey and Son (1848) explores the devastating effects of emotional deprivation on a dysfunctional family and on society as a whole.