Barnaby Rudge - A Tale of the Riots of Eighty : A Novel By Charles Dickens

Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty - Historical novel by Charles Dickens, published in 1841. Barnaby Rudge was Dickens' first attempt at a historical novel. It is set in the late 18th century and presents with great vigor and understanding (and some ambivalence of attitude) the spectacle of large-scale mob violence. In a case of mistaken identification, Barnaby Rudge, the mentally retarded son of a murderer, is arrested as a leader of a mob of anti-Catholic rioters. Subsequently jailed and sentenced to death, he is pardoned at the scaffold.