Volume 6 of this distinguished series, like the previously published volumes pursues the life, times, and work of Charles Dickens in a rich range of current scholarly research.
The contributors and their present academic affiliations are: Peter Christmas, Stanford; William M. Burgan, Indiana; Albert D. Hutter, UCLA; Robert E. Lougy, Pennsylvania State; David D. Marcus, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle; Robert M. McCarron, Simon Fraser University; William J. Palmer, Purdue; Frank Edmund Smith, William Rainey Harper College; Randolph Splitter, California Institute of Technology; and Deborah A. Thomas, Fairleigh Dickinson.
The ten contributions range from precise studies of themes, symbols, and motifs to new readings of Dickens' work, autobiographical reconstructions, and textual studies.
One of the purposes of the series is to afford opportunity for publishing longer-than-article-length works, and though not all of the present essays are of such length, they all show the diversity as well as the range of the best of current Dickens scholarship.
Taken together, the contributions widen the dimensions of Dickens scholarship and thus broaden our understanding of the man and his work. The essays, of permanent value, will be of interest to general readers as well as students and specialists.