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Subdued by the Dyer's Hand: Dickens at Work in Bleak House

Date Published:

6 June, 2011

Abstract:

This essay examines the implications of Dickens's statement in the preface to the one-volume edition of Bleak House (September 1853) that in the novel he "purposely dwelt upon the romantic side of familiar things." This claim, I argue, goes to the core of Dickens's art as a writer, an art that combines the presentation of disturbing news about the contemporary state of society with a skilful attempt to provide narrative pleasure, pleasure designed to ensure that the narrator retains his hold over readers for 67 chapters. Dickens's achievement, I conclude, constitutes literary art of the highest order, one that instructs readers in social and ethical truths while also delighting them and holding their attention in the course of telling a compelling story.

 

June 2011: David Paroissien, Emeritus Professor of English, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and Professorial Research Fellow, University of Buckingham, edits Dickens Quarterly and co-edits The Dickens Companion Series with Susan Shatto. He has contributed two volumes to the series (Oliver Twist and Great Expectations) and has recently edited A Companion to Charles Dickens (2008), a series of essays contributed by Dickensian scholars from around the world, designed to place Dickens’s writing in its literary and historical context. He is currently working on a project related to Dickens’s political views and his writing about history.

 

Publisher's Version

Volume 9, Issue 2
Last updated on 04/16/2020