Dickens and the City [Hardcover]

Through a comprehensive study of Dickens' career this work examines the crucial role played by London in the character of the man and the development of his writing. It discusses the significance of Dickens' early childhood experience in moving to London, and the special place the city came to hold in his creative imagination throughout his life. Then, blending biography and literary analysis with urban and social history, Dr Schwarzbach traces the fascinating and often dramatic relationship of the novels to the ever changing Victorian urban scene. The novels emerge not only as valuable historical documents, astonishing in their comprehensiveness and accuracy of detail, but as a unique contribution to the growth of modern urban culture.

Dr Schwarzbach is Assistant Professor of English Literature at Washington University in St Louis.

List of Plates
A note on the References
Introduction: The Genesis of a Myth
1 Sketches by Boz: Fiction for the Metropolis
2 Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby: Labyrinthine London
3 The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge: Breakdown and Breakthrough
4 Martin Chuzzlewit: Architecture and Accommodation
5 Dombey and Son: The World Metropolis
6 Bleak House: Homes for the Homeless
7 Hard Times: The Industrial City
8 Little Dorrit: People Like Houses
9 A Tale of Two Cities, The Uncommercial Traveller and Great Expectations: Paradise Revisited
10 Our Mutual Friend: The Changing City
Epilogue: Dickens and the City
Appendix I: A Note on George Scharf
Appendix II: A Note on Sources and Further Reading
Select Bibliography
Notes
Index