IN A DARK SQUALID PRISON A BABY GIRL IS BORN . . . Little Amy Dorrit grows up in the Marshalsea debtors' jail, looking after her father who has been an inmate there for many years. During the day she goes to work as a seamstress for a strange old lady, Mrs Clennam. When Mrs Clennam's son Arthur returns from abroad and enters Amy's life, her family's fortunes change beyond belief. Soon Amy is plunged into a world of high society, guilty secrets, mysterious villains and financial scandal. But will she ever truly escape the shadow of the prison walls - and find the love that eludes her?