Dickens at Work

by John Everett Butt

This book marks a new departure in the study of Dickens. The authors make use of first-hand evidence of Dickens’ actual methods and conditions of work; much of this evidence is examined and co-ordinated here for the first time. It includes Dickens’ detailed manuscript notes for novels, with a complete transcript of these for every instalment and chapter of David Copperfield. Seven other books are chosen, so that the different stages of his career and different kinds of work are well represented. The volume illustrates what modes of planning Dickens evolved as best suited to his genius and to the demands of serial publication, monthly or weekly; how he responded to the events of the day; and how he yet managed to combine the freshness of this "periodical", almost journalistic approach with the art of the novel.

238 pages, Hardcover

First published January 31, 1989

About the author

Born in 1906, John Everett Butt was educated at Shrewsbury School, and Merton College, Oxford. He became a Lecturer in English at Leeds University in 1929, and in 1930 he was Assistant Librarian at the English School Library, Oxford. From 1930 to 1946 he was a Lecturer in English at Bedford College, University of London, and during the Second World War he held administrative posts at the Ministry of Home Security and the Home Office. In 1952, he was a visiting Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Between 1946 and 1959, Butt was Professor of English Language and Literature at King's College (University of Durham) at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He was appointed Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at the University of Edinburgh in 1959.