Download or read book Dickens and the Myth of the Reader written by Carolyn W. de la L. Oulton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-11-10 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study explores the ways in which Dickens’s published work and his thousands of letters intersect, to shape and promote particular myths of the reading experience, as well as redefining the status of the writer. It shows that the boundaries between private and public writing are subject to constant disruption and readjustment, as recipients of letters are asked to see themselves as privileged readers of coded text or to appropriate novels as personal letters to themselves. Imaginative hierarchies are both questioned and ultimately reinforced, as prefaces and letters function to create a mythical reader who is placed in imaginative communion with the writer of the text. But the written word itself becomes increasingly unstable, through its association in the later novels with evasion, fraud and even murder.
Download or read book Dickens and the Myth of the Reader written by Carolyn Oulton and published by . This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book What the Dickens written by Gregory Maguire and published by Candlewick Press. This book was released on 2010-04-06 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Gregory Maguire does for the dark and stormy night what he did for witches in Wicked." — The New York Times Book Review A terrible storm is raging, and Dinah is huddled by candlelight with her brother, sister, and cousin Gage, who is telling a very unusual tale. It’s thestory of What-the-Dickens, a newly hatched orphan creature who finds he has an attraction to teeth, a crush on a cat named McCavity, and a penchant for getting into trouble. One day he happens upon a feisty girl skibberee working as an Agent of Change — trading coins for teeth — and learns of a dutiful tribe of tooth fairies to which he hopes to belong. As his tale unfolds, however, both What-the-Dickens and Dinah come to see that the world is both richer and far less sure than they ever imagined.
Download or read book Charles Dickens and Boz written by Robert L. Patten and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-10 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An original study of Dickens' early career and the way he constructed his literary reputation.
Download or read book Reading Dickens Differently written by Leon Litvack and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of original essays and innovative reading strategies—provides examples of reading Dickens in creative and challenging ways Reading Dickens Differently features contributions from many of the field’s leading scholars, offering creative ways of reading Dickens and enriching understanding of the most celebrated author of his time. A diverse range of innovative reading strategies—archival, historical, textual, and digital—representing new and exciting approaches to contemporary literary and cultural studies. This groundbreaking volume brings together literature, history, politics, painting, illustration, social media, video games, and other topics to reveal new opportunities to engage with the author's life and work. This unique book includes a re-evaluation of Dickens’ death and burial, new research data drawn from legal records and newspapers, assessments of well-known paintings and lesser-known illustrations, experimental readings of Dickens’ texts in digital form, and more. Much of the evidence presented has never been seen before, such as Dickens' funeral fee account from Westminster Abbey, Dickens' death certificate, and a telegram from Dickens' son asking for urgent assistance for his dying father. Revising and refreshing the critical strategies of traditional Dickens studies, this important volume: Features new research data on aspects of Dickens's life Discusses a range of innovative reading strategies (including physiological novel theory) for clarifying aspects of Dickens' work Examines the presence of Dickens in popular media and technology, such as Assassin’s Creed video game and A Christmas Carol iPad app Features rare illustrations, including documents and images relating to Dickens's death and funeral Edited by world authorities on Dickens and his manuscripts Authoritative, yet accessible, Reading Dickens Differently is a must-have book for Dickens specialists, instructors and students in Victorian fiction and Dickens courses, as well as general readers lookingfor innovative reading strategies of the author's work.
Download or read book The Dickens Myth written by Geoffrey Thurley and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 1976-01-01 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Frank Ly Dickens written by Patricia Vinci and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2004-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ´Frank'ly Dickens´ is based on comparative stories taken from the lives of Charles Dickens and Frank Sinatra - two men who stand alone in popular culture in their respective representation of the century and the country that they lived in. What was so "Frank" about Charles Dickens? Practically everything,as you'll find out in this book,which leaves the reader wondering whether Frank Sinatra really was Charles Dickens,or if they had merely lived the same myth, as the author claims. Twenty years after PBS first aired the six-hour television series, ´The Power of Myth,´ with Joseph Campbell, the series remains one of PBS's most popular reruns, with the subject of myth still captivating viewing audiences. This story of a shared myth between two famous men whose lives were, and increasingly continue to be, an open book, serves to remind us that we don't always have to look to the ancient myths to gain insights into life. Charles Dickens and Frank Sinatra serve as perfect models of observation in demonstrating how myth operates in the universe in a span of two centuries. This blending of biography, history, and journalism with esoteric thought - all in the context of myth makes the subject of this book a totally original one; a new myth created by the author to help us tune in to some of the lessons of the Cosmos. "The idea of ´Frank'ly Dickens´ is brilliant and the execution is perfect: Patricia Vinci writes American! Her story is clear and precise, breezy and bright. Best of all, she offers something original for all of us to think about and believe in. I loved it! " - Cedric Charles Dickens "Keen observation on the part of Ms. Vinci - who weaves a fascinating tale, while presenting inexplicable parallels in the lives of these two men - invites us to look at reality in a new way. Frank Sinatra would be complimented by this comparison to Charles Dickens. This shared myth theory is probably the most original thing written about the singer since his death." - Frank Waters, a former editor at The New York Herald Tribune and The New York Times
Download or read book The Reader in the Dickens World written by Susan R. Horton and published by Springer. This book was released on 1980-12-11 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Imagining Otherwise written by Debra Gettelman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-08-13 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Victorian authors engaged the imaginations of their readers and elevated the novel to new heights As novel publication exploded in nineteenth-century Britain, writers such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and George Eliot learned from experience—sometimes grudgingly—that readers tend to make their own imaginative contributions to fictional worlds. Imagining Otherwise shows how Victorian writers acknowledged, grappled with, and ultimately enlisted the prerogative of readers to conjure alternatives and add depth to the words on the page. Debra Gettelman provides incisive new readings of novels such as Sense and Sensibility, Little Dorrit, and Middlemarch, exploring how novelists known for prescriptive and didactic narrative voices were at the same time exploring the aesthetic potential for the reader’s independent imagination to lend nuance and authenticity to fiction. Modernist authors of the twentieth century have long been considered pioneers in cultivating the reader’s capacity to imagine what is not said as part of the art of fiction. Gettelman uncovers the roots of this tradition of novel reading a century earlier and challenges literary criticism that dismisses this spontaneous, readerly impulse as being unworthy of serious examination. As readers demand novels with relatable characters and fan fiction grows in popularity, the reader’s imagination has become a determining element of today’s literary environment. Imagining Otherwise takes a deeper look at this history, offering a critical perspective on how we came to view fiction as a site of imaginative appropriation.
Download or read book Dickens His Parables and His Reader written by Linda M. Lewis and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Charles Dickens once commented that in each of his Christmas stories there is “an express text preached on . . . always taken from the lips of Christ.” This preaching, Linda M. Lewis contends, does not end with his Christmas stories but extends throughout the body of his work. In Dickens, His Parables, and His Reader, Lewis examines parable and allegory in nine of Dickens’s novels as an entry into understanding the complexities of the relationship between Dickens and his reader. Through the combination of rhetorical analysis of religious allegory and cohesive study of various New Testament parables upon which Dickens based the themes of his novels, Lewis provides new interpretations of the allegory in his novels while illuminating Dickens’s religious beliefs. Specifically, she alleges that Dickens saw himself as valued friend and moral teacher to lead his “dear reader” to religious truth. Dickens’s personal gospel was that behavior is far more important than strict allegiance to any set of beliefs, and it is upon this foundation that we see allegory activated in Dickens’s characters. Oliver Twist and The Old Curiosity Shop exemplify the Victorian “cult of childhood” and blend two allegorical texts: Jesus’s Good Samaritan parable and John Bunyan’s ThePilgrim’s Progress. In Dombey and Son,Dickens chooses Jesus’s parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders. In the autobiographical David Copperfield, Dickens engages his reader through an Old Testament myth and a New Testament parable: the expulsion from Eden and the Prodigal Son, respectively. Led by his belief in and desire to preach his social gospel and broad church Christianity, Dickens had no hesitation in manipulating biblical stories and sermons to suit his purposes. Bleak House is Dickens’s apocalyptic parable about the Day of Judgment, while Little Dorrit echoes the line “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” from the Lord’s Prayer, illustrating through his characters that only through grace can all debt be erased. The allegory of the martyred savior is considered in Hard Times and A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens’s final completed novel, Our Mutual Friend, blends the parable of the Good and Faithful Servant with several versions of the Heir Claimant parable. While some recent scholarship debunks the sincerity of Dickens’s religious belief, Lewis clearly demonstrates that Dickens’s novels challenge the reader to investigate and develop an understanding of New Testament doctrine. Dickens saw his relationship with his reader as a crucial part of his storytelling, and through his use and manipulation of allegory and parables, he hoped to influence the faith and morality of that reader.
Download or read book A Christmas Carol written by Charles Dickens and published by Everyman's Library. This book was released on 1994-09-27 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A gorgeous hardcover edition of the timeless holiday classic, featuring stunning full-color illustrations by Arthur Rackham, with a gilt-stamped cloth cover, acid-free paper, sewn bindings, and a silk ribbon marker. No holiday season is complete without Charles Dickens's dramatic and heartwarming story of the transformation of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge through the efforts of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. Set on a cold Christmas Eve in Victorian London, and featuring Scrooge's long-suffering and mild-mannered clerk, Bob Cratchit; Bob’s kindhearted son, Tiny Tim; and a host of colorful characters, A Christmas Carol was an instant hit and has been beloved ever since by generations of readers of all ages.
Download or read book Dombey and Son written by Charles Dickens and published by . This book was released on 1848 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul Dombey is a cold, unbending, pompous merchant, and a widower with two children - Paul and Florence. His chief ambition is to perpetuate the firm-name. He dreams of passing his business on to his son. Dombey dotes on his son, and neglects and mistreats his daughter.The "son" in the title of the book is incapable of ever joining the firm. A sickly and odd child, Paul dies at the age of six. Dombey pours his resentment and anger out on his daughter, whom he pushes away despite her efforts to earn her father's love.Eventually Dombey remarries, after literally acquiring his new wife from her father in a commercial transaction. Dombey is as bad a husband as he is a father and his marriage is loveless. His new bride hates Dombey and eventually runs off with Canker, his business manager. Dombey characteristically blames Florence for this reversal, and strikes her, causing Florence to run away as well.Abandoned by everyone, Dombey loses his business and goes half insane, living in his decaying house. Dombey is eventually reconciled to his daughter, who always a doormat forgives her father........
Download or read book Charles Dickens written by Edgar Johnson and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 1979 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A scholarly biography of the author.
Download or read book Charles Dickens as a Reader written by Charles Kent and published by . This book was released on 1872 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Alice in Space written by Gillian Beer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-11-30 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An examination of Carroll's books about Alice explores the contextual knowledge of the time period in which it was written, addressing such topics as time, games, mathematics, and taxonomies.
Download or read book The Other Dickens written by Lillian Nayder and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-01 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Catherine Hogarth, who came from a cultured Scots family, married Charles Dickens in 1836, the same year he began serializing his first novel. Together they traveled widely, entertained frequently, and raised ten children. In 1858, the celebrated writer pressured Catherine to leave their home, unjustly alleging that she was mentally disordered-unfit and unloved as wife and mother. Constructing a plotline nearly as powerful as his stories of Scrooge and Little Nell, Dickens created the image of his wife as a depressed and uninteresting figure, using two of her three sisters against her, by measuring her presumed weaknesses against their strengths. This self-serving fiction is still widely accepted. In the first comprehensive biography of Catherine Dickens, Lillian Nayder debunks this tale in retelling it, wresting away from the famous novelist the power to shape his wife's story. Nayder demonstrates that the Dickenses' marriage was long a happy one; more important, she shows that the figure we know only as "Mrs. Charles Dickens" was also a daughter, sister, and friend, a loving mother and grandmother, a capable household manager, and an intelligent person whose company was valued and sought by a wide circle of women and men. Making use of the Dickenses' banking records and legal papers as well as their correspondence with friends and family members, Nayder challenges the long-standing view of Catherine Dickens and offers unparalleled insights into the relations among the four Hogarth sisters, reclaiming those cherished by the famous novelist as Catherine's own and illuminating her special bond with her youngest sister, Helen, her staunchest ally during the marital breakdown. Drawing on little-known, unpublished material and forcing Catherine's husband from center stage, The Other Dickens revolutionizes our perception of the Dickens family dynamic, illuminates the legal and emotional ambiguities of Catherine's position as a "single" wife, and deepens our understanding of what it meant to be a woman in the Victorian age.
Download or read book Author In Progress written by Therese Walsh and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empower Your Writing Through Craft and Community! Writing can be a lonely profession plagued by blind stumbles, writer's block, and despair--but it doesn't have to be. Written by members of the popular Writer Unboxed website, Author in Progress is filled with practical, candid essays to help you reach the next rung on the publishing ladder. By tracking your creative journey from first draft to completion and beyond, you can improve your craft, find your community, and overcome the mental barriers that stand in the way of success. Author in Progress is the perfect no-nonsense guide for excelling at every step of the novel-writing process, from setting goals, researching, and drafting to giving and receiving critiques, polishing prose, and seeking publication. You'll love Author in Progress if... • You're an aspiring novelist working on your first book. • You're an experienced veteran looking for ways to enhance your career and connect with your writing community. • You've finished your first draft and want to know the next steps. • You're seeking clear, effective advice about publication-from professionals who are "down in the trenches" every day. What's Inside Author in Progress features: • More than 50 essays from best-selling authors, editors, and industry leaders on a variety of writing and publishing topics. • Advice on writing first drafts, conducting research, building and fostering community, seeking critique, revising, and getting published. • An encouraging approach to the writing and publishing process, from authors who've walked this path.
