Content Warning: This section of the guide depicts suicide, ableism, and domestic abuse.

Little Dorrit begins in a blisteringly hot prison in Marseilles, France, in 1825. Two men—a jolly petty criminal from Italy named John Baptist Cavalletto and a morose gentleman named Monsieur Rigaud—sit in a prison cell. Rigaud confesses to John Baptist that he is in prison because he is accused of murdering his wife. Rigaud says that she jumped off a cliffside in an episode of hysteria, and he complains that hardly anyone believes him. When Rigaud leaves the prison for his trial, he is greeted by an angry mob that is upset by the horrific nature of his crime.

Also in Marseilles, a ship has arrived from a country where there is a plague epidemic, and it sits in quarantine in the harbor. Aboard the ship, two Englishmen—Arthur Clennam and Mr. Meagles—are chatting. Mr. Meagles is traveling with his wife, his pretty but fussy daughter Minnie (whom they call Pet), and an orphaned maid they have nicknamed Tattycoram. Mr. Meagles asks Clennam what he plans to do after the authorities release them from quarantine, and Clennam tells Meagles that he lacks direction. He explains that his stern mother exiled him to China to work for his father’s business, even though he has no interest in it.