Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens contains fourteen specially-commissioned chapters by leading international scholars, who together provide diverse but complementary approaches to the full span of Dickens's work, with particular focus on his major fiction. The essays cover the whole range of Dickens's writing, from Sketches by Boz through The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Separate chapters address important thematic topics: childhood, the city, and domestic ideology. Others consider formal features of the novels, including their serial publication and Dickens's distinctive use of language. Three final chapters examine Dickens in relation to work in other media: illustration, theatre, and film. Each essay provides guidance to further reading. The volume as a whole offers a valuable introduction to Dickens for students and general readers, as well as fresh insights, informed by recent critical theory, that will be of interest to scholars and teachers of the novels.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of illustrations
• Notes on contributors
• Chronology
• List of abbreviations and texts
• Preface John O. Jordan
• 1 The life and times of Charles Dickens Grahame Smith
• 2 From Sketches to Nickleby Robert L. Patten
• 3 The middle novels: Chuzzlewit, Dombey, and Copperfield Kate Flint
• 4 Moments of decision in Bleak House J. Hillis Miller
• 5 Novels of the 1850s: Hard Times, Little Dorrit, and A Tale of Two Cities Hilary Schor
• 6 The late novels: Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend Brian Cheadle
• 7 Fictions of childhood Robert Newsom
• 8 Fictions of the city Murray Baumgarten
• 9 Gender, family, and domestic ideology Catherine Waters
• 10 Dickens and language Garrett Stewart
• 11 Dickens and the form of the novel Nicola Bradbury
• 12 Dickens and illustrations Richard Stein
• 13 Dickens and theatre John Glavin
• 14 Dickens and film Joss Marsh
• Selected bibliography
• Index