Charles Dickens: David Copperfield/ Great Expectations

by Nicolas Tredell

Overview

David Copperfield and Great Expectations are among Charles Dickens's most famous novels. In both books, the hero tells the vivid and absorbing tale of his education by life, presents a rich range of characters and scenes, and tackles profound moral, social and psychological themes.

Part I of this essential study:
- Provides lucid and penetrating analyses of key passages
- Discusses the crucial topics of patriarchy, class, obsession, eccentricity, death, breakdown and recovery
- Summarizes the methods of analysis and offers suggestions for further work

Part II supplies key background material, including:
- An account of Dickens's life and works
- A survey of historical, cultural and literary contexts
- Samples of significant criticism

Also featuring a valuable Further Reading section, this volume provides readers with the critical and analytical skills which will enable them to enjoy and explore both novels for themselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350309333
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	07/12/2013
Series:	Analysing Texts
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	537 KB

About the Author

Nicolas Tredell is a freelance writer and formerly taught Literature, Film, Drama and Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. He is the series editor of Palgrave Macmillan's Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism series and the author of the Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby/Tender is the Night volume in the Analysing Texts series.
Nicolas Tredell is an Independent Scholar, UK.

Table of Contents

General Editor's Preface
Acknowledgements
Note on Quotations
Introduction
PART I: ANALYSING 'DAVID COPPERFIELD' AND 'GREAT EXPECTATIONS'
1. Introduction
2. Sons and Patriarchs
3. Ladies and Gentlemen
4. Obsessives and Eccentrics
5. Moments of Truth
6. Dying in Style
7. Breakdown and Recovery
PART II: THE CONTEXT AND THE CRITICS
8. Charles Dickens: Life and Works
9. The Historical, Cultural and Literary Context
10. A Sample of Critical Views
11. Further Reading
Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

an excellent addition to Palgrave's Analysing Texts series … this is a very user-friendly book. Tredell is rightly enthusiastic about Dickens and brings this enthusiasm to bear on key themes and tropes in Dickens's work … as a concise guide to these novels, and their author, this would take some beating.' - Adam Hansen, Northumbria University, in The Literary London Journal, Volume 12 Number 1–2 (Spring/Autumn 2015)