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Article: Dickens and New Historicism.(Review)
- Article from:
- Studies in the Novel
- Article date:
- March 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 University of North Texas. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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PALMER, WILLIAM J. Dickens and New Historicism (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998). 190 pp. $39.95.
This book begins by turning at once to young Nicholas Nickleby's exposure of the piratical adapter of novels and plays for the Crummles' acting company, which William Palmer cites as an instance of a character speaking to "Dickens's overarching sense of history" as an essential "part of present action (and literary production) in order for a coherent future to evolve" (p. 1). That "overarching sense" was surely more instinctive than designed at this early stage of Dickens's career, but from the retrospect of his broad excursion through the whole of Dickens's ...