CHARLES DICKENS
Charles Dickens by J. Gurney & Son, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dates: 1812-1870
Nationality: British
Literary Periods:
Early Victorian Period, 1837-1860
Mid-Victorian Period, 1860-1880
Nineteenth Century, 1800-1899
Victorian Period, 1837-1901
Literary Movements:
The 'Condition of England' Writers
RELATED AUTHORS
- Charlotte Brontë
- Benjamin Disraeli
- George Eliot
SPACE
Tale of two cities, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
REFERENCE & BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Scribner Writers Series [Database]
Essays on the life and works of Charles Dickens, complete works and suggested reading bibliographies
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- Literature Resource Center This link opens in a new windowDatabase providing full-text biographies, bibliographies, and critical analyses of authors from every time period and literary discipline.
- Literature Online (LION) This link opens in a new windowA database of English-language literature, containing thousands of full-text works of English and American poetry, drama and prose, as well as journals, author biographies, bibliographies, criticism, and reference resources.
- Literary Encyclopedia This link opens in a new windowA literary reference work written by specialists from universities around the world, providing articles on authors, works, and literary and historical topics.
RESEARCH & CRITICISM
Books, essays, and journal articles indexed in MLA International Bibliography 
[Database]
MLA International Bibliography is the definitive literary research database, indexing the most authoritative Dickens scholarship published in books and academic journals. MLA indexes and links to the entire JSTOR literary research collection as well as linking to many other full-text providers and the Colby College Libraries catalog. If you discover books or articles through MLA that are not available at Colby or through our lending partners, please request these items using your ILLiad Account.
You'll also want to check out...
Parentage and Inheritance in the Novels of Charles Dickens (1994) by
Dickens' plots have often been dismissed as conventional or cheaply sensational: Anny Sadrin argues that they should rather be seen as the embodiment of one of Dickens's central preoccupations: dramatised rituals of succession. Through readings of individual texts Professor Sadrin shows how the simple pattern of quest for father which characterises Oliver Twist develops in Dickens's later novels into an extended exploration of the triple inheritance of looks, name and property. Increasing intricacies of plot represent growing tension between conflicting forces in the parent-child relationship: the wish to belong and the wish to break free, the quest for identity and the fear of shameful identification, the filial piety of Telemachus and the patricidal yearnings of Oedipus. Throughout, Dickens is using plot to account for the complex process of reinstatement and revaluation which enables rightful heirs to take their rightful place in the family and society.
Call Number: Miller PR4592.P34 S23 1994ISBN: 0521390869
The violent effigy; a study of Dickens' imagination (1973) by Call Number: Colby PR4588 .C27
Charles Dickens (2007) by
Charles Dickens is without doubt a literary giant. The most widely read author of his own generation, his works remain incredibly popular and important today. Often seen as the quintessential Victorian novelist, his texts convey perhaps better than any others the drive for wealth and progress and the social contrasts that characterised the Victorian era. His works are widely studied throughout the world both as literary masterpieces and as classic examples of the nineteenth century novel. Combining a biographical approach with close reading of the novels, Donald Hawes offers an illuminating portrait of Dickens as a writer and insight into his life and times. This book will provide a short, lively but sophisticated introduction to Dickens's work and the personal and social context in which it was written.
Call Number: Miller PR4581 .H39 2007ISBN: 9780826489647
The actor in Dickens; a study of the histrionic and dramatic elements in the novelist's life and works (1927) by Call Number: Colby PR4575 .A512
Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens (2000) by
The Oxford Companion to Dickens (published in hardback as The Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens) offers in one volume a lively and authoritative compendium of information about Dickens: his life, his works, his reputation and his cultural context. In addition to entries on his works, hischaracters, his friends and places mentioned in his works, it includes extensive information about the age in which he lived and worked: the people, events, and institutions which provided the context for his work; the houses he lived in, the countries he visited, the ideas he satirised, thecircumstances he responded to, the culture he participated in. Compiled by a distinguished editorial team, The Oxford Companion to Dickens provides a synthesis of the state of the art of Dickens studies and contains a more authoritative, concise, extensive and accessible range of information thanany other reference work on Dickens.
Call Number: Bates & Bowdoin PR4580 .O94 1999ISBN: 9780198662532
PRIMARY SOURCES: TEXTS
Oliver Twist (2004) by
The story of the orphan Oliver, who runs away from the workhouse only to be taken in by a den of thieves, shocked readers when it was first published. Dickens's tale of childhood innocence beset by evil depicts the dark criminal underworld of a London peopled by vivid and memorable characters - the arch-villain Fagin, the artful Dodger, the menacing Bill Sikes and the prostitute Nancy. Combining elements of Gothic Romance, the Newgate Novel and popular melodrama, Dickens created an entirely newkind of fiction, scathing in its indictment of a cruel society, and pervaded by an unforgettable sense of threat and mystery.
Call Number: Colby PR4567.A11 T5ISBN: 0141439742
Hard Times, a Longman Cultural Edition (2003) by
Longman's new Cultural Editions Series, Hard Times, by Charles Dickens, edited by Jeff Nunokawa, includes Books 1-3 of Hard Times and contextual materials on the age of Dickens.
Call Number: Miller PR4561.A2 N86 2004ISBN: 0321107217
A Christmas Carol (2003) by
Emerging from Dickens's preoccupation in the early 1840s with issues of poverty, ignorance, and cruelty, this classic story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, visited by four ghosts on Christmas Eve, was first published in 1843 to strong reviews and popular success. The Broadview edition uses the first edition with original drawings by John Leech. This edition also includes Washington Irving's descriptions of English Christmas customs; essays by Dickens on Christmas, and his essay "A Walk in a Workhouse"; a British government report on the lives of child labourers; a speech by Dickens on the importance of educating the poor; selected letters; contemporary reviews; and a listing of film, television, and radio adaptations of the book.
Call Number: Miller PR4572 .C68 2003ISBN: 1551114763
David Copperfield (1981) by
David Copperfield
Call Number: Miller PR4558.A2 B87 1980ISBN: 0198124929
Great Expectations (2002) by
'Great Expectations is up there for me with the world's greatest novels' Howard Jacobson. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read Charles Dickens's Great Expectations charts the course of orphan Pip Pirrip's life as it is transformed by a vast, mysterious inheritance. A terrifying encounter with the escaped convict Abel Magwitch in a graveyard on the wild Kent marshes; a summons to meet the bitter, decrepit Miss Havisham and her beautiful, cold-hearted ward Estella at Satis House; the sudden generosity of a mysterious benefactor - these form a series of events that change the orphaned Pip's life forever, and he eagerly abandons his humble station as an apprentice to blacksmith Joe Gargery, beginning a new life as a gentleman. Charles Dickens's haunting late novel depicts Pip's education and development through adversity as he discovers the true nature of his identity, and his 'great expectations'. This definitive version uses the text from the first published edition of 1861. It includes a map of Kent in the early nineteenth century, and appendices on Dickens's original ending and his working notes, giving readers an illuminating glimpse into the mind of a great novelist at work. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Call Number: Miller PR4560 .A1 2003bISBN: 0141439564
A Tale of Two Cities (2000) by
Dr Manette has been confined for 18 years in the Bastille because he found out the Marquis de Evremonde and his brother had ill treated a girl and mortally wounded a young boy. He has just been released and brought to England.
Call Number: Miller PR4571.A2 M39 2000ISBN: 0140437304
