The Verse of Charles Dickens

The Verse of Charles Dickens reveals Charles Dickens's complex, tortured relationship from 1830 to 1870 with the form and function of verse, a highly influential literary medium in the nineteenth century. Renowned as a prose writer, not as a poet, Dickens's various engagements with the genre reflect a dichotomy of enjoyment and aversion. Positioning Dickens as sensitive to the emotive capacities of verse, despite arguably lacking lyrical talent, solidifies the active role it played in his career and relationships. Whether utilising it for flirtation, political satire, parody, eulogy, or to construct elaborate riddles, Dickens continued to 'drop into' poetry. Furthermore, as editor of Household Words and All the Year Round, he regulated and influenced its periodical production by other Victorian writers. Uncovering new biographical and historical allusions in over one hundred verse items, this collection's editorial apparatus also cites Dickens's oeuvre and previous scholarship, clarifies definitions, and demystifies cultural references.

The Verse of Charles Dickens constitutes essential scholarship that belongs on the same shelf as K. J. Fielding's The Speeches of Charles Dickens and Philip Collins's Charles Dickens: The Public Readings. Craig and Middleton assess Dickens's collected verse against thoroughly researched and cited alternative assessments, resulting in a robust debate.--Robert C. Hanna, Bethany Lutheran College

Lydia Craig is Lecturer of English at Eastern Illinois University, Associate Editor of The Charles Dickens Letters Project, Copy Editor of The Dickensian, and Treasurer of the Dickens Society. Chapters and articles on the life and works of Charles Dickens, with a particular focus on digital, intertextual, and biographical research, have appeared in The Theological Dickens (Routledge, 2021), Dickens and Women Re-Observed (Edward Everett Root, 2020), Victorian Periodicals Review, Dickens Quarterly, Dickens Studies Annual, and The Dickensian. A monograph in-progress, Charles Dickens in Lombard Street: Love, Ambition, and Revenge, examines Dickens's unsuccessful courtship of Maria Beadnell. Emily Middleton is Lecturer in Digital Humanities & Digital Skills at Leeds University, Editor of the Dickensian, co-Editor of the Curran Index, consultant editor for The Charles Dickens Letters Project, and is on the editorial board of The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens. Besides editing and contributing to Dickens After Dickens (White Rose University Press, 2020), Bell has co-edited a special issue of Victoriographies entitled 'Dickens, Death, and Afterlives' (2020). Published chapters and articles on Dickens can be found in Companion to Popular Fiction (McFarland, 2018), Dickens Studies Annual, Digital Humanities Quarterly, and The Dickensian.

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