Other Dickens
Pickwick to Chuzzlewit
John Bowen
Price: £71.00 (Hardback)
ISBN-13: 978-0-19-818506-2
Publication date: 11 November 1999
240 pages, 216x138 mm
A sample of this book is available in PDF format
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| Reviews |
| - '... this book could trigger a productive reconsideration of literary history and the history of the novel genre.' - Michael Lund, Dickens Studies Annual
- '
Engaging and singularly jargon-free ... Bowen proves himself more alert to the paradoxes and inner contradictions of Dickens's writing than any commentator since G. K. Chesterton ... He responds with sensitivity and shrewd intelligence to the sheer plenitude of Dickens's imagination ... On the books dust-jacket, Robert Patten is quoted, declaring Bowen to be "the freshest new voice on Dickens
for decades, a reader for the new millennium". That seems to me a judgement with which many readers of Other Dickens
are certain to agree.
' - Paul Schlicke, Review of English Studies
- 'What emerges is a fresh look at, and often a new appreciation for, the fertility of Dickens's imagination and the complexity of the novels. This is an indispensable work for all students of Dickens but most especially for those weary of studies that are mere mechanical application of the latest critical fad.' - J. Don Vann, Choice
- 'an infectiously energetic, affirmative piece of work, and makes thoroughly persuasive claims for the high merits of each of the first six novels ... Certainly, this is a book worth having.' - Dominic Rainsford, Dickensian
- '
excellent ... the acuteness of the books judgements, the breadth of its theoretical and literary reference, and the originality of its ideas combine to make Other Dickens
a singular achievement and an important and enduring contribution to the critical literature on Dickens.
' - John O. Jordan, Victorian Studies
- 'John Bowens Other Dickens
is a book I wish I had written ... The studies of each novel are first-rate - strong enough in each instance to stand alone as a critical essay - and the voice articulate and insightful.
' - Brian Rosenberg, Dickens Quarterly
- 'one of the best books to be published on Dickens for some time ... Bowen combines real scholarship with analytical sophistication ... His principled eclecticism results in marvelously diverse and stimulating readings of the novels ... the exuberance, confidence and fluency of the prose suggests the experience of reading a Dickens novel ... Bowen is throughout engaged, excited, and inspired' - Juliet John, Notes and Queries
- '
excellent ... the acuteness of the book's judgements, the breadth of its theoretical and literary reference, and the originality of its ideas combine to make Other Dickens
a singular achievement and an important and enduring contribution to the critical literature on Dickens.
' - John Jordan, Victorian Studies
- 'a pleasure to read, full of witty and elegant prose, good jokes, sound information, and perceptive commentary.' - Susan Morgan, SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500-1900
- 'Reader-friendly, incisive and ... witty.' - Richard J. Dunn, Studies in the Novel
- 'Dickens emerges, not as a clown and conjuror ... but as a major radical voice ... Seldom has Boz seemed more frighteningly coherent.' - Jonathan Keates, Times Literary Supplement
- 'Bowen's determination to look more sympathetically at the early novels ... pays high dividends ... [an] excellent study.' - John Lucas, Journal of Victorian Culture
- 'exhilarating and unfailingly interesting ... an impressive and noteworthy book ... Bowen's is the work of a restless, fresh, and lively young intelligence.' - Patrick McCarthy, Dickens Forum
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| Description | | - Emphasizes the importance of Dickens's early novels
- Clear, jargon-free use of twentieth-century theorists Derrida and Benjamin to introduce a new critical vocabulary to the study of Dickens
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In the first half of his career, Dickens wrote some of the most important novels of the nineteenth century, including The Pickwick Papers
, Oliver Twist
, and Martin Chuzzlewit
. They are exorbitant and transgressive books, with an inventive comic force unprecedented in the English novel. In this, the first full-length study for thirty years, John Bowen blends contemporary theory and
historical awareness to argue that they are radical in both political and fictional terms. With a tactful use of contemporary critical theory, he shows how their often uncanny power disturbs and transforms our ways of understanding Dickens's work and his place in the history of the novel.
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Readership: Readers of Dickens and nineteenth-century fiction more generally. Students and teachers of English literature. Dickens scholars. People interested in contemporary literary theory, particularly the work of Jacques Derrida.
| Contents |
Introduction
Arbitrary and Despotic Characters
Adjestin' the Differences: The Pickwick Papers
Nancy's Truth: Oliver Twist
and the 'Stray Chapters'
Performing Business, Training Ghosts: Nicholas Nickelby
Nell's Crypt: The Old Curiosity Shop
and Master Humphrey's Clock
History's Grip: Barnaby Rudge
The Genealogy of Monsters: Martin Chuzzlewit
Index
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| Authors, editors,
and contributors |
John Bowen, Reader in English, University of Keele
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