Set partly in America, which Dickens had visited in 1842, the novel includes a searing satire on the United States and is the story of two Chuzzlewits, Martin and Jonas, who have inherited the characteristic Chuzzlewit selfishness. It contrasts their diverse fates of moral redemption and wordly success for one, with increasingly desperate crime for the other. This powerful black comedy involves hypocrisy, greed and blackmail, as well as one of the most famous of Dickens's grotesques, Mrs. Gamp.
