Other Dickens: Pickwick to Chuzzlewit [Hardcover]

John Bowen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 3, 2000

In the first half of his career, Dickens wrote some of the most important novels of the nineteenth century, including The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, and Martin Chuzzlewit. They are exorbitant and transgressive books, with an inventive comic force unprecedented in the English novel. In this, the first full-length study for thirty years, John Bowen blends contemporary theory and historical awareness to argue that they are radical in both political and fictional terms. With a tactful use of contemporary critical theory, he shows how their often uncanny power disturbs and transforms our ways of understanding Dickens's work and his place in the history of the novel.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Stunningly mature and original in its theoretically-engaged and engaging readings, pliant and appreciative in its judgments, Other Dickens reintroduces the early novels with captivating intelligence and brio. Bowen's seems to me the freshest new voice on Dickens in decades, a reader for the new millennium."--Robert L. Patten, Rice University

"Bowen's determination to look more sympathetically at the early novels...pays high dividends.... [An] excellent study."--John Lucas, Journal of Victorian Culture

"Engaging and singularly jargon-free...Bowen proves himself more alert to the paradoxes and inner contradictions of Dickens's writing than any commentator since G. K. Chesterton.... He responds with sensitivity and shrewd intelligence to the sheer plenitude of Dickens's imagination."--Paul Schlicke, Review of English Studies

"Excellent...the acuteness of the book's judgements, the breadth of its theoretical and literary reference, and the originality of its ideas combine to make Other Dickens a singular achievement and an important and enduring contribution to the critical literature on Dickens."--John O. Jordan, Victorian Studies

"His forays into character names...are dazzling and delightful. What emerges is a fresh look at, and often a new apprecition for, the fertility of Dickens's imagination and the complexity of the novels. This is an indispensable work for all students of Dickens but most especially for those weary of studies that are more mechanical application of the latest critical fad."--Choice

"Dickens emerges, not as a clown and conjuror...but as a major radical voice.... Masterly... eloquent... passionate."--Jonathan Keates, Times Literary Supplement

"Exhilarating and unfailingly interesting. It is in short an impressive and noteworthy book.... [Bowen's] book may be read as a series of well researched essays, open to all general readers. That he also includes, clarifies, and makes available to us singular and several kinds of meanings in the texts, that is its special value. Bowen's is the work of a restless, fresh, and lively young intelligence." --Dickens Forum

"Bowen's work is a pleasure to read, full of witty and elegant prose, good jokes, sound information and perceptive commentary. Bowen offers a persuasive vision of Dickens's early novels as anti-coherent, not in the sense of not making sense, but in the sense of being politically and formally radical experiments in narrative."--Studies in English Literature

"One of the best books to be published on Dickens for some time.... Bowen combines real scholarship with analytical sophistication.... His principled eclecticism results in marvellously diverse and stimulating readings of the novels ...the exuberance, confidence and fluency of the prose suggests the experience of reading a Dickens novel.... Bowen is throughout engaged, excited, and inspired."--Juliet John, Notes and Queries

"An infectiously energetic, affirmative piece of work, and makes thoroughly persuasive claims for the high merits of each of the first six novels... Certainly, this is a book worth having."--Dominic Rainsford, Dickensian

About the Author

Dr. John Bowen is Reader in English at the University of Keele.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (February 3, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198185065
• ISBN-13: 978-0198185062
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,745,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Best of Times, Best of Books, June 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Other Dickens: Pickwick to Chuzzlewit (Paperback)

Early Dickens has alays been my favorite, and John Bowen's book is an excellent companion to those wildly energetic first novels. The exciting and thought provoking chapter on Oliver Twist alone is worth the price of the book and will send you back to re-read the novel with a greater appreciation of Dickens' genius.