Research Catalog

Title

Charles Dickens's Our mutual friend : a publishing history / Sean Grass.

Author

Grass, Sean, 1971-

Publication

Farnham, Surrey, England : Burlington, VT : Ashgate, [2014]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xiv, 274 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

Even within the context of Charles Dickens's history as a publishing innovator, Our Mutual Friend is notable for what it reveals about Dickens as an author and about Victorian publishing. Marking Dickens's return to the monthly number format after nearly a decade of writing fiction designed for weekly publication in All the Year Round, Our Mutual Friend emerged against the backdrop of his failing health, troubled relationship with Ellen Ternan, and declining reputation among contemporary critics. In his subtly argued publishing history, Sean Grass shows how these difficulties combined to make Our Mutual Friend an extraordinarily odd novel, no less in its contents and unusually heavy revisions than in its marketing by Chapman and Hall, its transformation from a serial into British and U.S. book editions, its contemporary reception by readers and reviewers, and its delightfully uneven reputation among critics in the 150 years since Dickens's death. Enhanced by four appendices that offer contemporary accounts of the Staplehurst railway accident, information on archival materials, transcripts of all of the contemporary reviews, and a select bibliography of editions, Grass's book shows why this last of Dickens's finished novels continues to intrigue its readers and critics.

Series Statement

Ashgate studies in publishing history : manuscript, print, digital

Uniform Title

Ashgate studies in publishing history.

Subjects

• Authors and publishers
• Literature publishing
• Dickens, Charles (Charles John Huffam), 1812-1870
• England
• Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 > Our mutual friend
• Ausgabe (Druckwerk)
• Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 > Relations with publishers
• 1800 - 1899
• Authors and publishers > England > History > 19th century
• Literature publishing > England > History > 19th century
• Relations with publishers
• History
• Our mutual friend (Dickens, Charles)

Genre/Form

History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-264) and index.

Contents

Introduction -- Our mutual friend: "the poorest of Mr. Dickens's works" -- The man from somewhere: Ellen Ternan, Staplehurst, and the remaking of Charles Dickens -- The cup and the lip: writing Our mutual friend -- Putting a price upon a man's mind: Our mutual friend in the marketplace -- A dismal swamp? Our mutual friend and Victorian critics -- The voice of society: Our mutual friend since 1870.

Call Number

JFE 16-8527

ISBN

• 9780754669302
• 0754669300

LCCN

• 2013035881
• 40023576915

OCLC

862095102

Author

Grass, Sean, 1971-

Title

Charles Dickens's Our mutual friend : a publishing history / Sean Grass.

Publisher

Farnham, Surrey, England : Burlington, VT : Ashgate, [2014]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Ashgate studies in publishing history : manuscript, print, digital

Ashgate studies in publishing history.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-264) and index.

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Table of contents

Chronological Term

1800 - 1899

Other Standard Identifier

40023576915

Research Call Number

JFE 16-8527

Berg Coll Dickens O87 ZA2 2014