One of my favourite books - as you say, it's very dark in its atmosphere. One very minor point - it's not portraying the Victorian world, but that of her predecessor, William IV. You'll note that, at the end of the book, when the police come to arrest Bill Sykes, they tell him to open the door "in the King's name". The book was actually published in 1838, the first year of Victoria's reign.
You may be interested in the thoroughly proof-read versions of all Dickens's novels I've created for the MobileRead library.
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