A Companion to Charles Dickens concentrates on the historical, ideological, and social forces that defined Dickens’s world.


Puts Dickens’s work into its literary, historical, and social contexts
Traces the development of Dickens’s career as a journalist and novelist
Includes original essays by leading Dickensian scholars on each of Dickens’s fifteen novels
Explores a broad range of topics, including criticisms of his novels, the use of history and law in his fiction, language, and the effect of political and social reform
Examines Dickens's legacy and surveys the mass of secondary materials that has been generated in response and reverence to his writing