viiAcknowledgments
My first tribute belongs to all the scholars and
editors who made the Pilgrim Edition of The Letters of Charles Dickens, pub-
lished by Clarendon Press under the general direction of Madeline House,
Graham Storey, and Kathleen Tillotson. The twelfth and final volume of this
magnificent edition came out in 2002, helping me to complete the ground-
work for this study of Dickens’s letters and fictions. I am similarly indebted
to The Dent Uniform Edition of Dickens’ Journalism, edited by Michael Slater;
both editions are rich with annotations and connections that were invaluable
to me.
Janice Carlisle and Andrew Von Hendy, the first readers of these chapters,
helped me enormously with editorial suggestions laced with affectionate
enthusiasm for the project. Peter J. Potter of Cornell University Press has
been a welcoming and efficient editor. My anonymous press reviewers served
as excellent guides for the final stages of revision.
I wish there were an adequate way to thank all those friends, students,
teachers, and critics, known to me in person or in print, who have helped to
shape my thoughts in ways I can no longer retrieve, over the several decades
of my fascination with Dickens’s work. In recent years, friends and col-
leagues have directly helped to stimulate parts of this book by offering me
opportunities to present or publish my ideas as they were developing; for
this I warmly thank Suzy Anger, John Bowen, James Buzard, Janice Carlisle,
Margaret Harris, Gerhard Joseph, Richard Kaye, Joss Marsh, Bob Patten, Leah
Price, Hilary Schor, and Carolyn Williams. The Dickens Universe, spon-
sored each summer by the Dickens Project at the University of California,
Santa Cruz, played a crucial role by giving me the heart to think of my early
biographical-critical forays as the beginnings of a book. I am grateful to all
the friends I met or made there for their generous collegiality, with special
appreciation for Dickens Project Director John Jordan.
Back at home in the Boston College English department, Judith Wilt
shared with me her always inventive Dickens mind, Kevin Ohi inspired me
with his uncannily knowing sense of David Copperfield, and Mary Crane kept