Book description
For fans old and new, this is a fascinating tour through Charles
Dickens's novels in the hands of a master critic and interpreter of
his work. Oliver Twist … Great Expectations … David Copperfield - all
contain riotous fictional worlds that still live and breathe for
readers today. But how much do we really know about the dazzling
imagination that brought this all into being? To celebrate the
bicentenary of the birth of Dickens in 2012, Victorian literature
expert John Sutherland has created a gloriously wide-ranging
alphabetical companion to Dickens's novels, excavating the hidden
links between his characters, themes, and preoccupations, and the
minutiae of his endlessly inventive wordplay. Covering Baby Farming,
Bastards, Cannibalism, Christmas, Darwin, Fog, Gruel, London,
Micawberomics, Murder, Pubs, Punishment, Smells, Spontaneous
Combustion and Zoo Horrors to name but a few, Sutherland gives us a
uniquely personal guide to the greatest novelist England has ever produced.
John Sutherland was born in 1938 and is Emeritus Lord
Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University
College, London. He has taught in universities world-wide and is also
Visiting Professor of California Institute of Technology. Author of
many books and articles, his interest lies in the areas of Victorian
fiction, the history of publishing and 20th-century fiction. He writes
for The Guardian and is a well-known literary reviewer.
