What was the last completed novel by Charles Dickens?

Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812 – 1870) was an English writer and social critic of the Victorian era. "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" was a novel by Charles Dickens which was unfinished when Dickens died in 1870. "Our Mutual Friend" was his 14th and last completed novel which was illustrated by Marcus Stone.

The writing of "Our Mutual Friend" coincided with multiple tragic events in Dickens' life, including the deaths of his mother Elizabeth (1863) and son Walter (1864), as well as the Staplehurst Railway Accident (1865), from which Dickens miraculously escaped uninjured.

He began writing it in 1863 and It was initially published in monthly installments that began in May of 1864 and ended in November 1865. The story centres on the effects of greed and the corruption that money brings.

The story features John Harmon who is the son of a wealthy dust (waste) contractor and heir to his father's fortune on the condition that he agrees to marry Bella Wilfer. He is abroad when his father dies and when he is travelling home he is supposed drowned in a case of mistaken identity.

With his supposed death the dust fortune goes to Boffin, his father's former servant. John gets himself hired into the Boffin home as secretary John Rokesmith. Here he meets Bella and, with the help of the kindly Boffins, wins her love as Rokesmith, and marries her. He later reveals his true identity and regains his fortune.