What do you think?
Rate this book
Very Short Introductions #594
Charles Dickens: An Introduction
Charles Dickens is credited with creating some of the world's best-known fictional characters, and is widely regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian age. Even before reading the works of Dickens many people have met him already in some form or another. His characters have such vitality that they have leapt from his pages to enjoy flourishing lives of their own: The Artful Dodger, Miss Havisham, Scrooge, Fagin, Mr Micawber, and many many more. His portrait is present on British ten-pound notes; he is a national icon, indeed himself a generator of what Englishness signifies.
In this book, Jenny Hartley explores the key themes running through Dickens's corpus of works, and considers how they reflect his attitudes towards the harsh realities of nineteenth century society and its institutions, such as the workhouses and prisons. Running alonside this is Dickens's relish of the carnivalesque; if there is a prison in almost every novel, there is also a theatre. She considers Dickens's multiple lives and careers: as magazine editor for two thirds of his working life, as travel writer and journalist, and his work on behalf of social causes including ragged schools and fallen women. She also shows how his public readings enthralled the readers he wanted to reach but also helped to kill him. Finally, Hartley considers what we mean when we use the term 'Dickensian' today, and how Dickens's enduring legacy marks him out as as a novelist different in kind from others.
In this book, Jenny Hartley explores the key themes running through Dickens's corpus of works, and considers how they reflect his attitudes towards the harsh realities of nineteenth century society and its institutions, such as the workhouses and prisons. Running alonside this is Dickens's relish of the carnivalesque; if there is a prison in almost every novel, there is also a theatre. She considers Dickens's multiple lives and careers: as magazine editor for two thirds of his working life, as travel writer and journalist, and his work on behalf of social causes including ragged schools and fallen women. She also shows how his public readings enthralled the readers he wanted to reach but also helped to kill him. Finally, Hartley considers what we mean when we use the term 'Dickensian' today, and how Dickens's enduring legacy marks him out as as a novelist different in kind from others.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2016
9 people are currently reading
186 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
Read
May 10, 2019As is well known, a visit to a writer's house makes you the equivalent of one and a half world experts on that author - two if the wind is in the right direction, and I had read Claire Tomlin's Charles Dickens as well as seeing the house museum in Doughty Street despite or because of which I thoroughly enjoyed Jenny Hartley's very short introduction to Charles Dickens - although at over one hundred pages it is more of a short introduction to Dickens than a very short introduction.
In this joyful essay Hartley weaves with a few ideas producing a brilliant and engaging tapestry, suggestive and fertile, demonstrating a few simple threads that run through all his works, it is an example of how much you can pack into a low page count.
One which I imagine everybody who is at least a little familiar with Dickens will know is from his life - at twelve years old he was put to work in a boot blacking factory while the rest of his family were in debtor's prison (papa Dickens was a bit of a Mr Micawber), once he was returned to is family his mother was quite keen for him to go back in order to earn more money for his family and finance their proto-Micawberish (Micawberite?) lifestyle. the Joy of this book is that Hartley shows how for Dickens Home and family are key ideals - but at the same time as in his own life experience they are ambiguous the home can be threatened even from within, the family also are not safe, true safety for a Dickens' character as for the writer himself comes from the self-constructed family of friends and rituals of conviviality . So at once Dickens reinforces an idealisation of home and family and explodes it. His own divided feelings transmitting energy to his stories.
The duality is present in other areas too, the British colonies are at once dumping grounds for failures, criminals and ne'er do wells and places of reinvention. I particularly liked here the business of the charitable home that Dickens was involved with (along with an heiress from the Coutts banking family) for women with shady backgrounds - yes they were given refuge and taught skills but upon 'graduation' they were shipped out to the colonies. You can turn over a new leaf - but not here.
While at the blacking factory he was friendly with a slightly older boy who helped him out, this boy was called Robert Fagin, who got recycled into fiction as the sinister Jew - Fagin so again Dickens recycled (or upcycled) vigorously from his own life .
Dickens dealt in dualities and opposites, always to the extremes, the rich and the poorest, the private and the public, the innocent and the wicked, the animate and inanimate. It is all melodramatic and so adds further energy to propel the reader along.
Despite Dickens theatricality and his extrovert persona with curled hair, arty beardette, colourful waistcoats he was intensely private, the story of his time in the boot blacking factory was told only to his friend and chosen biographer John Forster who carefully hid Dickens' adulterous relationship with the actress Ellen Terry. Forester pointed out that David Copperfield's initials were simply Dickens' reversed - this, Forster reported, surprised Dickens greatly, but the theme of self revelation and evasion is also a Dickensian theme, Amy Dorrit, Hartley points out, is A me Dickens hiding himself in plain sight.
She acknowledges that he can be read as a very poor writer with his reliance on coincidence, grotesque exaggeration, and intense even mawkish emotionality. Such weakness are also strengths, his writing is a theatrical experience for the reader, a consequence is that emotion is, has to be even, externalised in dress, gesture and action.
I was not so convinced by Hartley's discussion of Dickens as a radical purely from my memory of Hard Times and Dickens' 'good' worker who shrinks from joining a strike, Dickens' radicalism I feel is of a piece with his theatre his deserving poor are to be objects of our pity and charity, never people who could help themselves through politics, the idea I imagine is through melodrama to covert the reader to Dickens' way of perceiving the world- this too I suppose goes back to the boot blacking factory Dickens' innocent victims are himself as a child overwhelmed by a trauma they can't resolve for themselves. We might read his fiction as repeated attempts to save the child he was and to give that child the resolution into a happy ever after that he didn't succeed in giving himself.
This is the prosperous nation which cannot educate its children, cannot look after its poor, cannot keep its cities clean, and cannot bury its dead properly (p.80) plus ça change and for as long as (and where-ever) that remains the case Dickens will remain a popular writer.
In this joyful essay Hartley weaves with a few ideas producing a brilliant and engaging tapestry, suggestive and fertile, demonstrating a few simple threads that run through all his works, it is an example of how much you can pack into a low page count.
One which I imagine everybody who is at least a little familiar with Dickens will know is from his life - at twelve years old he was put to work in a boot blacking factory while the rest of his family were in debtor's prison (papa Dickens was a bit of a Mr Micawber), once he was returned to is family his mother was quite keen for him to go back in order to earn more money for his family and finance their proto-Micawberish (Micawberite?) lifestyle. the Joy of this book is that Hartley shows how for Dickens Home and family are key ideals - but at the same time as in his own life experience they are ambiguous the home can be threatened even from within, the family also are not safe, true safety for a Dickens' character as for the writer himself comes from the self-constructed family of friends and rituals of conviviality . So at once Dickens reinforces an idealisation of home and family and explodes it. His own divided feelings transmitting energy to his stories.
The duality is present in other areas too, the British colonies are at once dumping grounds for failures, criminals and ne'er do wells and places of reinvention. I particularly liked here the business of the charitable home that Dickens was involved with (along with an heiress from the Coutts banking family) for women with shady backgrounds - yes they were given refuge and taught skills but upon 'graduation' they were shipped out to the colonies. You can turn over a new leaf - but not here.
While at the blacking factory he was friendly with a slightly older boy who helped him out, this boy was called Robert Fagin, who got recycled into fiction as the sinister Jew - Fagin so again Dickens recycled (or upcycled) vigorously from his own life .
Dickens dealt in dualities and opposites, always to the extremes, the rich and the poorest, the private and the public, the innocent and the wicked, the animate and inanimate. It is all melodramatic and so adds further energy to propel the reader along.
Despite Dickens theatricality and his extrovert persona with curled hair, arty beardette, colourful waistcoats he was intensely private, the story of his time in the boot blacking factory was told only to his friend and chosen biographer John Forster who carefully hid Dickens' adulterous relationship with the actress Ellen Terry. Forester pointed out that David Copperfield's initials were simply Dickens' reversed - this, Forster reported, surprised Dickens greatly, but the theme of self revelation and evasion is also a Dickensian theme, Amy Dorrit, Hartley points out, is A me Dickens hiding himself in plain sight.
She acknowledges that he can be read as a very poor writer with his reliance on coincidence, grotesque exaggeration, and intense even mawkish emotionality. Such weakness are also strengths, his writing is a theatrical experience for the reader, a consequence is that emotion is, has to be even, externalised in dress, gesture and action.
I was not so convinced by Hartley's discussion of Dickens as a radical purely from my memory of Hard Times and Dickens' 'good' worker who shrinks from joining a strike, Dickens' radicalism I feel is of a piece with his theatre his deserving poor are to be objects of our pity and charity, never people who could help themselves through politics, the idea I imagine is through melodrama to covert the reader to Dickens' way of perceiving the world- this too I suppose goes back to the boot blacking factory Dickens' innocent victims are himself as a child overwhelmed by a trauma they can't resolve for themselves. We might read his fiction as repeated attempts to save the child he was and to give that child the resolution into a happy ever after that he didn't succeed in giving himself.
This is the prosperous nation which cannot educate its children, cannot look after its poor, cannot keep its cities clean, and cannot bury its dead properly (p.80) plus ça change and for as long as (and where-ever) that remains the case Dickens will remain a popular writer.
December 31, 2016
Let me explain why I liked this book: because it is about Dickens. And Dickens is wonderful. So this is a wonderful book.
I heard about it on the "Prufrock" mailing, so I requested it from the library. When I picked it up, I was delighted to see that it was a small book (I did get the actual book, not a Kindle copy) and thus could be read easily during the busy holidays. The author has just six chapters, which include topics such as Dickens' interest in social issues, a brief biography, his love of London and the cult which has grown up around his work. But my chapter by far was "Character and Plot". Imagine sitting with a loved one and leafing through photo albums, reminiscing over the past. That was how it felt to read this chapter and come across many of the memorable characters I've met and loved in the novels. I kept smiling with delight to re-read the descriptions and enjoy Dickens' words all over again.
Having read Dickens aloud to my children, I'm really pleased that at least one of my children has also developed a great appreciation of/love for the books. It's quite fun to quote to each other as we come across people in our lives who remind us of some of the fictional characters.
I heard about it on the "Prufrock" mailing, so I requested it from the library. When I picked it up, I was delighted to see that it was a small book (I did get the actual book, not a Kindle copy) and thus could be read easily during the busy holidays. The author has just six chapters, which include topics such as Dickens' interest in social issues, a brief biography, his love of London and the cult which has grown up around his work. But my chapter by far was "Character and Plot". Imagine sitting with a loved one and leafing through photo albums, reminiscing over the past. That was how it felt to read this chapter and come across many of the memorable characters I've met and loved in the novels. I kept smiling with delight to re-read the descriptions and enjoy Dickens' words all over again.
Having read Dickens aloud to my children, I'm really pleased that at least one of my children has also developed a great appreciation of/love for the books. It's quite fun to quote to each other as we come across people in our lives who remind us of some of the fictional characters.
February 14, 2017
Full review forthcoming.
January 7, 2017
Mange interessante pointer, men der er dog nogle pointer, der ikke er helt i overenstemmelse med de teorier, som jeg har valgt at bruge. Fx, det at Dickens var foretaler for de fattige, er i modstrid med det, som jeg læser i Dickens romaner.
November 29, 2019
This is an excellent introduction to Charles Dickens, giving personal biographical information on his childhood and adult life, and how the events of his life affected his writing and in turn were affected by his writings. His major works are all discussed, as well as his strengths and his weaknesses, with a final chapter on the influence Dickens had and continues to have on the world after his death. All in all, this is another outstanding volume in Oxford University Press' excellent series of Very Short Introductions.
October 6, 2021
Fun, but not especially informative or inspiring. Most interesting were the last two chapters, Radical Dickens about his politics and Global Dickens in which we learn that the Chinese translation of Oliver Twist was called Orphan in the Foggy City.
October 9, 2017
I really enjoyed this "introduction" to Dickens, though I think someone who has never read Dickens might feel confused and overwhelmed by all the references that, to an avid reader, are like fond memories of visits with old friends.
The first part is primarily biographical information, and the book ends with Dickens' influence around the world and through the ages. The bulk of the text, though, is like a really good book club discussion that encompasses all of his work rather than a single novel. Hartley ties together common motifs and other literary devices that are universal in Dickens' world. She connected pieces of the Dickens puzzle that I knew went together but hadn't quite put into place before, while also revealing new tidbits that will greatly enhance future reading.
"His unique gift to the world has been a club for all who read his books, for all who watch the adaptations on film and television, and for anyone who wants to come to the party. This virtual club opened its doors in 1836, and they have never closed." Indeed.
The first part is primarily biographical information, and the book ends with Dickens' influence around the world and through the ages. The bulk of the text, though, is like a really good book club discussion that encompasses all of his work rather than a single novel. Hartley ties together common motifs and other literary devices that are universal in Dickens' world. She connected pieces of the Dickens puzzle that I knew went together but hadn't quite put into place before, while also revealing new tidbits that will greatly enhance future reading.
"His unique gift to the world has been a club for all who read his books, for all who watch the adaptations on film and television, and for anyone who wants to come to the party. This virtual club opened its doors in 1836, and they have never closed." Indeed.
September 23, 2017
Jenny Hartley, the author of Charles Dickens: An Introduction has done beautiful work in summarizing his themes, his life, and most of his works in a small, approachable volume. Her exposition is logical and coherent. Some of the more abstract ideas felt slow and hard to follow as she made assertions and illustrated them with quotations, but she made up for it with vital, vigorous accounts of the actions of Dickens and his countless admirers.
October 22, 2020
By definition, this can tell relatively little to those who know well Dickens and the large body of writing about him , though there are still some sharp insights, and quotations are very well chosen. What can be done in a mere 100 pages, is done; and this would provide an excellent introduction for someone embarking on Dickens or wishing to be reacquainted with him, to say nothing of students seeking rapid and judicious context.
June 22, 2017
First rate discussion of the author and his works. Contemporary references in order to complement the history and context in which the novel's and journalism were written; Hartley is the ideal teacher. No spoilers, so the uninitiated need not worry. If you haven't read Dickens, I can't see how you'll be able to resist picking him up after this book.
June 6, 2017
It's very short but it addresses a nice range of topics: including a mini Dickens biography; an analysis of his literary style; a description of Dickens' career and public image during his own lifetime; and a sort of prologue about Dickens' legacy. Great.
August 4, 2018
This was an amazing little book. She gets a lot of info into a little space. It was informative and fascinating!
August 4, 2020
Helpful background on Dickens' life, works and writing style. Highly recommended for any fan.
July 23, 2023
Excellent way to revise and consolidate my thoughts about the Dickens novels I have read and good spur to get on and read the rest.
Well written, thoughtful and informative. Highly recommended.
Well written, thoughtful and informative. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews