Sixteen scholars from across the globe come together in Charles Dickens as an Agent of Change to show how Dickens was (and still is) the consummate change agent. His works, bursting with restless energy in the Inimitable's protean style, registered and commented on the ongoing changes in the Victorian world while the Victorians' fictional and factional worlds kept (and keep) changing. The essays from notable Dickens scholars-Malcolm Andrews, Matthias Bauer, Joel J. Brattin, Doris Feldmann, Herbert Foltinek, Robert Heaman, Michael Hollington, Bert Hornback, Norbert Lennartz, Chris Louttit, Jerome Meckier, Nancy Aycock Metz, David Paroissien, Christopher Pittard, and Robert Tracy-suggest the many ways in which the notion of change has found entry into and is negotiated in Dickens' works through four aspects: social change, political and ideological change, literary change, and cultural change. An afterword by the late Edgar Rosenberg adds a personal account of how Dickens changed the life of one eminent Dickensian.

AcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Changing DickensI. Dickens and Social ChangeRepetitions and Reversals: Patterns for Social Change in Pickwick PapersThree Revolutions: Alternate Routes to Social Change in Bleak HouseDickens, Society, and Art: Change in Dickens's View of Effecting Social ReformThe World Changing Dickens, Dickens Changing the WorldII. Dickens and Changes of PowerParrots, Birds of Prey, and Snorting Cattle: Dickens's Whig Agenda"The Tremendous Potency of the Small": Dickens, the Individual, and Social Change in a Post-America, Post-Catastrophist AgeMoney, Power, and Appearance in Dombey and SonIII. Dickens and Literary ChangeThe Passing of the Pickwick MomentThe Chimes and the Rhythm of LifeRadical Dickens: Dickens and the Tradition of Romantic RadicalismModern Characters in the Late Novels of Charles DickensIV. Dickens and Changes in Popular Culture and in the TheaterThe Cultural Politics of Dickens's Hard TimesConjuring Dickens: Magic, Intellectual Property, and The Old Curiosity ShopPopular Dickens: Changing Bleak House for the East End StageThe Frozen Deep: Gad's Hill, June-July 1857How to Read Dickens in English: A Last RetrospectIndex