Like much of Dickens's later fiction, this novel has seen many reversals of critical fortune. It has been shown to be a critique of HM Treasury and the blunders that led to the loss of life of 360 British soldiers at the Battle of Balaclava.[3] Imprisonment – both literal and figurative – is a major theme of the novel, with Clennam and the Meagles quarantined in Marseilles, Rigaud jailed for murder, Mrs Clennam confined to her house, the Dorrits imprisoned in the Marshalsea, and most of the characters trapped within the rigidly defined English social class structure of the time.
Tchaikovsky, a voracious reader and theatre-goer when he was not composing, was entranced by the book.[4]
Franz Kafka, a great admirer of Dickens, sent a copy to Felice Bauer. " Yesterday I sent you Little Dorrit. You know it well. How could we forget Dickens. It's probably not a good read in its entirety with the children, but parts of it will certainly give you and them great pleasure."[5]
The American critic Anne Stevenson speaks of Little Dorrit as "a wonderful read – a tragical-comical-satirical-poetical mystery story that turns out to be an allegory of love." She praises the characterization of the "major characters" (Arthur Clennam, Mr Dorrit, Little Dorrit), but sees others as "a cast of puppets that the master showman can't help but tag with formulaic phrases … Each character's name is a guide to the entertainment to be expected: the energetic Mr Pancks invariably rakes his hair upright and steams about like a tugboat; Mr Sparkler rants about "damn fine women with no nonsense about them"; Mr Flintwinch, with his wry neck and crooked necktie, perpetually screws himself into sinister corners."[6]
