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).

List of Illustrations.

Notes on Contributors.

Preface.

Acknowledgments.

Abbreviations.

Part I Perspectives on the Life.

1 A Sketch of the Life (Michael Allen).

2 Dickens's Use of the Autobiographical Fragment (Nicola Bradbury).

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

4 Three Major Biographies (Catherine Peters).

Part II Literary/Cultural Contexts.

5 The Eighteenth-century Legacy (Monika Fludernik).

6 Dickens and the Gothic (Robert Mighall).

7 Illustrations (Malcolm Andrews).

8 The Language of Dickens (Patricia Ingham).

9 The Novels and Popular Culture (Juliet John).

Part III English History Contexts.

10 Dickens as a Reformer (Hugh Cunningham).

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

12 Dickens and Gender (Natalie McKnight).

13 Dickens and Technology (Trey Philpotts).

14 Dickens and America (1842) (Nancy Aycock Metz).

15 Dickens and Government Ineptitude Abroad, 1854-1865 (Leslie Mitchell).

16 Dickens and the Uses of History (John Gardiner).

17 Dickens and Christianity (Valentine Cunningham).

18 Dickens and the Law (Jan-Melissa Schramm).

Part IV The Fiction.

19 The Pickwick Papers (David Parker).

20 Oliver Twist (Brian Cheadle).

21 Nicholas Nickleby (Stanley Friedman).

22 The Old Curiosity Shop (Gill Ballinger).

23 Barnaby Rudge (Jon Mee).

24 Martin Chuzzlewit (Goldie Morgentaler).

25 Dombey and Son (Brigid Lowe).

26 David Copperfield (Gareth Cordery).

27 Bleak House (Robert Tracy).

28 Hard Times (Anne Humpherys).

29 Little Dorrit (Philip Davis).

30 A Tale of Two Cities (Paul Davis).

31 Great Expectations (Andrew Sanders).

32 Our Mutual Friend (Leon Litvack).

33 The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Simon J. James).

Part V Reputation and Influence.

34 Dickens and the Literary Culture of the Period (Michael Hollington).

35 Dickens and Criticism (Lyn Pykett).

36 Postcolonial Dickens (John O. Jordan).

Index.