This timeless rag's to riches story concerns the vacillating fortunes of the Dorrit family. The kind-hearted Amy looks after her proud father William who is a long-term inmate of Marshalsea debtors' prison in London. But their fate is transformed by the unexpected arrival of the benevolent Arthur Clennam. As the Dorrits meet a variety of characters from rich to poor, a dark villain Rigaud threatens to spill a long-held family secret.