A Companion to Charles Dickens

by Paroissien, David

• ISBN13: 9780470691908
• ISBN10: 0470691905
• Edition: 1st
• Format: eBook
• Copyright: 2008-04-15
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

A Companion to Charles Dickens concentrates on the historical, ideological, and social forces that defined Dickens’s world.

• Puts Dickens’s work into its literary, historical, and social contexts
• Traces the development of Dickens’s career as a journalist and novelist
• Includes original essays by leading Dickensian scholars on each of Dickens’s fifteen novels
• Explores a broad range of topics, including criticisms of his novels, the use of history and law in his fiction, language, and the effect of political and social reform
• Examines Dickens's legacy and surveys the mass of secondary materials that has been generated in response and reverence to his writing

Author Biography

David Paroissien is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham. He edits Dickens Quarterly and co-edits, with Susan Shatto, the Dickens Companions series. He is the author of The Companion to Oliver Twist (1992), The Companion to Great Expectations (2000), and has edited The Mystery of Edwin Drood for Penguin (2002).

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations viii

Notes on Contributors ix

Preface xiv

Acknowledgments xvi

Abbreviations xvii

Part I Perspectives on the Life 1

1 A Sketch of the Life 3
Michael Allen

2 Dickens's Use of the Autobiographical Fragment 18
Nicola Bradbury

3 "Faithfully Yours, Charles Dickens": The Epistolary Art of the Inimitable 33
David Paroissien

4 Three Major Biographies 47
Catherine Peters

Part II Literary/Cultural Contexts 63

5 The Eighteenth-century Legacy 65
Monika Fludernik

6 Dickens and the Gothic 81
Robert Mighall

7 Illustrations 97
Malcolm Andrews

8 The Language of Dickens 126
Patricia Ingham

9 The Novels and Popular Culture 142
Juliet John

Part III English History Contexts 157

10 Dickens as a Reformer 159
Hugh Cunningham

11 Dickens's Evolution as a Journalist 174
John M. L. Drew

12 Dickens and Gender 186
Natalie McKnight

13 Dickens and Technology 199
Trey Philpotts

14 Dickens and America (1842) 216
Nancy Aycock Metz

15 Dickens and Government Ineptitude Abroad, 1854–1865 228
Leslie Mitchell

16 Dickens and the Uses of History 240
John Gardiner

17 Dickens and Christianity 255
Valentine Cunningham

18 Dickens and the Law 277
Jan-Melissa Schramm

Part IV The Fiction 295

19 The Pickwick Papers 297
David Parker

20 Oliver Twist 308
Brian Cheadle

21 Nicholas Nickleby 318
Stanley Friedman

22 The Old Curiosity Shop 328
Gill Ballinger

23 Barnaby Rudge 338
Jon Mee

24 Martin Chuzzlewit 348
Goldie Morgentaler

25 Dombey and Son 358
Brigid Lowe

26 David Copperfield 369
Gareth Cordery

27 Bleak House 380
Robert Tracy

28 Hard Times 390
Anne Humpherys

29 Little Dorrit 401
Philip Davis

30 A Tale of Two Cities 412
Paul Davis

31 Great Expectations 422
Andrew Sanders

32 Our Mutual Friend 433
Leon Litvack

33 The Mystery of Edwin Drood 444
Simon J. James

Part V Reputation and Influence 453

34 Dickens and the Literary Culture of the Period 455
Michael Hollington

35 Dickens and Criticism 470
Lyn Pykett

36 Postcolonial Dickens 486
John O. Jordan

Index 501