News

NEW DICKENS RESEARCH PUBLISHED

Wednesday 5th November 2003

John Drew, an expert on Charles Dickens and lecturer in our English Department, had both a book and an article published on Saturday.

Dr Drew's article, which appeared in The Guardian , challenged a belief long held by Dickens scholars - that the young Dickens had experienced great unhappiness when working in a blacking factory and this had inspired him when writing the darker episodes in his fiction. Dr Drew's extensive research, which involved scrutinising the diary of a journalist called John Payne Collier and searching through old newspapers, uncovered some poems written by Dickens which praise the product which he manufactured. Dickens had written the jingles before he became famous and Dr Drew found them in the advertising section of a newspaper.

Dr Drew's book, Dickens the Journalist , is the first critical overview of Dickens' journalism to have been produced. The book's publishers, Palgrave, say of it "This project offers the first critical guide to over a million words of vintage Dickens, which have been much overlooked in continuous assessments and re-assessments of his novels".