The Oxford Handbook of Charles Dickens

This will be a valuable resource for all Dickens readers, and it will complement any reading of Dickens's prose. * S.A. Parker, CHOICE *
Through the extraordinary range of its coverage of Dickens and his works, its corps of contributors, and the breadth of approaches gathered within its pages, The Oxford Handbook of Charles Dickens more than fulfils these ambitions: it offers both an indispensable guide to its subject and a comprehensive aggregation of the many ways in which this most fertile of authors continues to be interpreted, reinvented, and adapted a century and a half after his death. * Iain Crawford, Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas *
The esteemed editors of The Oxford Handbook of Charles Dickens are to be congratulated for assembling a body of work that will prove informative and provocative for both lifelong Dickensians and newcomers to his works. [...] Perhaps the most exciting thing about the volume is its optimistic attitude about the possibilities for new scholarship generated by emerging technology, emergent critical approaches, and overdue attention to systematically ignored cultural locations. Most of the volume's authors took up the editors' challenge to sketch out potential paths for future work on the texts or contexts for which they were responsible. Thus, the Oxford Handbook does not simply document a robust tradition of scholarly accomplishment on the occasion of Dickens's bicentenary, but instead testifies to a relevance that would appear to be vigorous and inexhaustible. * Joseph McLaughlin, Victorian Studies *
Altogether, the editors are to be congratulated in eliciting and compiling so much excellent work...students and postgraduates will find it invaluable. It is a full and trustworthy volume, exemplary in its scholarship and offering a clear exposition of the current healthy state of play of Dickens studies in the academic world. * Jenny Hartley, The Dickensian *
a comprehensive and wide-ranging set of essays on the present state of Dickens studies, including further reading suggestions at the end of each chapter, as well as frequent reflections on the directions future work in the field might profitably take ... This is a valuable reference work: impressive in its scope, thoughtfully organised, and with illuminating insights on Dickens dotted throughout. * Benjamin Westwood, Nineteenth-Century Contexts *
offers a gold-standard survey, with sections on life and career, major works, context and worldview, and many more. * Pamela K. Gilbert, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 *