Dickens, Death, and Christmas

by Patten, Robert L.

• ISBN13: 9780192862662
• ISBN10: 0192862669
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2023-09-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Author Biography

Robert L. Patten, Senior Research Fellow, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London

Robert L. Patten retired as Autrey Professor Emeritus in Humanities and Emeritus Professor of English at Rice University; he continues as a Senior Research Fellow, non-resident, at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Studies, University of London. He earned his B.A. at Swarthmore and his PhD at Princeton and has devoted his research and teaching primarily to British nineteenth-century literature, book illustration, and print history. For these subjects he has received Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Humanities, and other grants, and spent a year each at the National Humanities Center and the National Gallery of Art.

Table of Contents

Prologue
1. A Frequent Visitor
2. Dickens's Christmases to 1836
3. Pickwick and After
4. Dickens Contemplates Sledge-Hammer Blows
5. Yuletide Celebrations in the 1840s
6. Marley Was Dead
7. Ringing Out Change
8. Chirping
9. Battling for His Life
10. Bargain Haunters
11. Thereafter
12. Endings
Appendix I: Dickens's Essays
Appendix II: Dickens and Unitarianism
Appendix III: Dickens on Victorian religious disputes
Bibliography