Dickens, Novel Reading, and the Victorian Popular Theatre

by Deborah Vlock

Overview

In this study Deborah Vlock shows that characters, dialogue, and plots from many of Charles Dickens' novels can be traced to the Victorian stage, and that contemporary readers and writers of fiction were strongly influenced by what they saw at the theater. Through an examination of theatrical and popular-cultural sources—including accounts of noted actors and actresses, and of popular theatrical characters of the time—Vlock uncovers unexpected precursors for some popular Dickensian characters, and throws new light on the conditions in which Dickens' novels were initially received.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521026888
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/02/2006
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture , #19
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	7.13(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.63(d)

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; Acknowledgments; 1. Introduction; 2. Dickens and the 'imaginary text'; 3. Theatrical attitudes: performance and the English imagination; 4. Patter and the politics of standard speech in Victorian England; 5. Charles Mathews, Charles Dickens, and the comic female voice; 6. Patter and the problem of redundancy: odd women and Little Dorrit; 7. Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"[Vlock] has shown why explanations of the cultural context of novel-reading that emphasize privacy and domesticity are unsatisfactory. She has pointed to a more promising direction for research." D.G. Paz, Albion

From the Publisher