The essays in this volume examine questions such as Dickens’ symbolism, his political attitudes, his psychological tensions and his artistry. They are also concerned with aspects of Dickens which have been neglected in recent years, such as his handling of plot, his heroes and heroines, his journalism, his religious view and his philistinism.

This book investigates the ways in which Charles Dickenss mature fiction, prison novels of the 20th century, and prison films narrate the prison. Alber addresses the significance of prison metaphors in novels and films, and investigates the ideological underpinnings of prison narratives by addressing the question of whether they generate cultural understandings of the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the prison.

The essays in this volume examine questions such as Dickens' symbolism, his political attitudes, his psychological tensions and his artistry. They are also concerned with aspects of Dickens which have been neglected in recent years, such as his handling of plot, his heroes and heroines, his journalism, his religious view and his philistinism.

Although enjoyed my many as a masterpiece of Dickens’ comic writing, Martin Chuzzlewit has long been underrated by professional critics. This volume redresses the balance by devoting its attention to a full critical discussion of the novel and by including a full survey of the critical positions held in the past. As well as discussing the themes of selfishness and hypocrisy, the history of the text is also explored, as is the complex relationship between Dickens and the United States which played a great part in the development of the novel and exerted considerable influence on it early reception.

This book marks a new departure in the study of Dickens. The authors make use of first-hand evidence of Dickens’ actual methods and conditions of work; much of this evidence is examined and co-ordinated here for the first time. It includes Dickens’ detailed manuscript notes for novels, with a complete transcript of these for every instalment and chapter of David Copperfield. Seven other books are chosen, so that the different stages of his career and different kinds of work are well represented. The volume illustrates what modes of planning Dickens evolved as best suited to his genius and to the demands of serial publication, monthly or weekly; how he responded to the events of the day; and how he yet managed to combine the freshness of this "periodical", almost journalistic approach with the art of the novel.

Essays by 18 contributors.

From 1837 to 1912, Charles Dickens was by far the most popular writer for American readers. Through several sources including statistics, literary biography, newspapers, memoirs, diaries, letters, and interviews, Robert McParland examines a historical time and an emerging national consciousness that defined the American identity before and after the Civil War. American voices present their views, tastes, emotional reactions and identifications, and deep attachment and love for Dickens's characters, stories, themes, and sensibilities as well as for the man himself. Bringing together contemporary reactions to Dickens and his works, this book paints a portrait of the American people and of American society and culture from 1837 to the turn of the twentieth century. It is in this view of nineteenth-century America--its people and their values, their reading habits and cultural views, the scenarios of their everyday lives even in the face of the drastic changes of the emerging nation--that Charles Dickens's American Audience makes its greatest impact.

The recent discovery that as a young man Charles Dickens lived only a few doors from a major London workhouse made headlines worldwide, and the campaign to save the workhouse from demolition caught the public imagination. Internationally, the media immediately grasped the idea that Oliver Twist's workhouse had been found, and made public the news that both the workhouse and Dickens's old home were still standing, near London's Telecom Tower. This book, by the historian who did the sleuthing behind these exciting new findings, presents the story for the first time, and shows that the two periods Dickens lived in that part of London - before and after his father's imprisonment in a debtors' prison - were profoundly important to his subsequent writing career.

A translation of Louis Cazamian's classic survey of Victorian social fiction. For this translation Martin Fido has provided a substantial foreword, and has revised and completed the bibliographical references and corrected the footnotes.