Dickens's Style

by Daniel Tyler

Overview

Charles Dickens, generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian age, was known as 'The Inimitable', not least for his distinctive style of writing. This collection of twelve essays addresses the essential but often overlooked subject of Dickens's style, with each essay discussing a particular feature of his writing. All the essays consider Dickens's style conceptually, and they read it closely, demonstrating the ways it works on particular occasions. They show that style is not simply an aesthetic quality isolated from the deepest meanings of Dickens's fiction, but that it is inextricably involved with all kinds of historical, political and ideological concerns. Written in a lively and accessible manner by leading Dickens scholars, the collection ranges across all Dickens's writing, including the novels, journalism and letters.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107527430
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	07/02/2015
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture , #86
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.06(h) x 0.59(d)

About the Author

Daniel Tyler is a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Research Fellow in English at Oxford University and a lecturer in English at Lincoln College, Oxford.

Table of Contents

Introduction Daniel Tyler; 1. Dickens's umbrellas John Bowen; 2. Dickens by the clock Matthew Bevis; 3. Dickens's rhythms Robert Douglas-Fairhurst; 4. Spectres of style Daniel Tyler; 5. Dickens and the form of the historical present Clare Pettitt; 6. 'Gigantic domesticity': the exaggeration of Charles Dickens Freya Johnston; 7. Style and the making of character in Dickens Philip Horne; 8. Snarling Charles: a Saxon style of restraint Rebekah Scott; 9. Compound interest: Dickens's figurative style Jennifer Gribble; 10. Reading the book of himself: the uncommercial traveller and 'Dickensian' style Bharat Tandon; 11. Lived death: Dickens's rogue glyphs Garrett Stewart; 12. Dispensing with style Helen Small; Notes; Select bibliography.

Editorial Reviews

"Anyone seriously interested in Dickens, especially anyone who cares about his language, will welcome the publication of Dickens’s Style. The thirteen essays collected here bring a fresh and consistently illuminating perspective to bear on an aspect of Dickens that has largely been neglected or undervalued in most recent studies of his work … Dickens’s Style marks a valuable return to consideration of Dickens’s language. As such, it is a useful reminder both of what makes Dickens distinctive and of how close reading at its best remains fundamental to an understanding of his work."
Dickens Quarterly

"… offers Dickens readers unprecedented insights … Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty."
N. Lukacher, Choice

From the Publisher