Charles Dickens : A Critical Study

Contents: Preface. 1. The Dickens Period: An Introduction. 2. The Boyhood of Dickens. 3. The Youth of Dickens. 4. The Growth of Man and Writer. 5. The Pickwick Papers. 6. The Great Popularity. 7. Dickens and America. 8. Dickens and Christmas. 9. The Time of Transition. 10. The Story-Teller. 11. Characterisation. 12. The Alleged Optimism of Dickens. 13. Art, Veracity and Moral Purpose. 14. Satiric Portraiture.

From a bitter childhood mired in poverty and hard work to a career as the most acclaimed and best-loved writer in the English-speaking world, Charles Dickens had a life as tumultuous as he created in his teeming novels of life in Victorian England.

Brilliantly written and thoroughly researched, Dickens provides an absorbing and perceptive account of its subject as a singularly complex man and a consummate artist, offering readers new insights into Dickens’- and literature’s – greatest works, such as Bleak House, David Copperfield, Great Expectations and Oliver Twist.

With passion and wit, author describes the crucial years that formed Dickens the man. He explains how Dickens transferred the smallest fragments of his experience to his fiction, and how he interpreted his youth for both himself and his readers, throwing a clear light on the creative process and sources of literary imagination. An illuminating look at a complex and baffling person, fans of literary biography will relish author’s acclaimed style. (Jacket)