Based around the Gordon riots of 1780 as seen through the eyes of the simple but good-hearted Barnaby Rudge. The fanatical anti-Catholic Lord George Gordon is treated with some sympathy in the novel, which concludes with a panoramic description of the riots. One of two works that Dickens published in his short-lived weekly serial Master Humphrey's Clock, this was Dickens' first attempt at a historical novel.
