Overview

This volume places Dickens at the centre of a dynamic and expanding Victorian print world and tells the story of his career against a background of options available to him. The collection describes a world animated by outpourings of print materials: books, serials, newspapers, periodicals, libraries, paintings and prints, parodies and plagiarisms, censorship, advertising, as well as theatre and other entertainment, and celebrity. It also shows this period as driven by a growing and more literate population, and undergirded by a general conviction that writing was a crucial component of governance and civic culture. The extensive introduction and selected articles anchor Dickens's attempts to establish better conditions for writers regarding copyright protection, pay, status, recognition, and effectiveness in altering public policy. They speak about Dickens's life as playwright, journalist, novelist, editor, magazine publisher, theatrical producer, actor, lecturer, reader of his own works, supporter of charities for impoverished authors and fallen women, exponent of a morality of Christian compassion and domestic affections sometimes put into question by his own actions, proponent and critic of British nationalism, and champion of education for all. This selection of essays and articles from previously published accounts by internationally renowned scholars is of interest to all students and professionals who are fascinated by the composition, manufacture, finance, formats, pictorializations, sales, advertising and influence of Dickens's writing.

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9781138109599

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'Clearly, this collection is of tremendous value to anyone with even a passing interest in its central subject...it is a luxury to have in one place (and to have scrupulously indexed) the cream of recent work in this area, collected by the Dickens scholar who is in the best place to do so...' Dickens Quarterly

Author Information

Robert L. Patten is Lynette S. Autrey Professor in Humanities at Rice University, USA; Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK and Scholar in Residence at the Charles Dickens Museum.

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