Dicken and his Circle

Popular novelist, reforming crusader, amateur actor, and professional journalist, Charles Dickens wore many masks. He could be hilarious, sentimental, or scathing, a moralist, and a hypocrite. He rivals Shakespeare in his creation of iconic fictional characters. In his work with the journal Household Words and All the Year Round, he brought his contemporaries to wide audiences. In this course we will read fiction by members of his circle (Wilkie Collins and Elizabeth Gaskell) as well as several short stories and long novels by Dickens himself. We will examine the impact of modes of publication on narrative form. Independent research projects will culminate in seminar papers, with an emphasis on the writing process.