Little Helper

This novel is completely atypical for the work of Jules Verne. A reader who did not know it was his work might think they were reading a novel by the English writer Charles Dickens.

The story takes place in Ireland in the second half of the 19th century, in a country that is even beginning to depopulate due to a wave of emigration caused by terrible poverty and famine. The narrative begins in the summer of 1875, when a beggar named Thornpipe was wandering through the Irish countryside. His dog pulled a cart with a barrel organ, decorated with “royal puppets,” as Thornpipe called this decoration. He pretended that the puppets moved on their own, but in reality, a three-year-old boy was enclosed inside the barrel organ, moving them. He was an orphan and foundling named Little Good-Boy, whom Thornpipe punished with a whip and left to nearly starve to death. And it is the fate of this little boy that is the subject of the novel.

The author first describes his sorrowful childhood in a workhouse and then how, thanks to his business skills, he gradually acquired a considerable fortune, which he used to help other people in need.