Bedside, Bathtub & Armchair Companion to Dickens

Brian Murray is the author of H.G Wells and Charles Dickens: Literature and Life, and a contributor and adviser to the Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century and The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature. His essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in a variety of scholarly and popular publications, including First Things, The Weekly Standard, and The Baltimore Sun.

• Part 1 - The Inimitable Icon; "Life with Father"; What Gets Blacked in a Blacking Factory?; Dickens's Bookshelf; Sidebar: Dickens's Favourite Books; From the Gallery - Dickens's work as a Parliamentary reporter; Sidebar: A Short Look at Shorthand; "I'll Never Stop Saying Maria"--rejection by Maria Beadnell; Capsule: Sketches by Boz (1836); The Boz Style; Capsule: The Pickwick Papers (1836); Men with Pens: Dickens's Illustrators; Part 2 continues a Virtual Walking Tour to places associated with Dickens's life and work; Includes Capsules on Life and Adventures of Nichloas Nickleby (1830), The Old Curiosity Shop (1840), Barnaby Rudge (1841); "Who Was Gordon and Why Did He Riot?" anti-Catholicism in Dickens's Day; Capsule: Martin Chuzzlewit (1844); Sidebar: A Dickens's Crossword Puzzle; Part 3 continues the Walking Tour and includes Capsules of David; Copperfield, Bleak House, Hard Times, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, et al.; Sidebar: Dickens and W. C. Fields; Sidebar: Dickens in Nighttown; Was Dickens a Liberal or a Conservative?; Sidebar: Dickens on Film; "Diagnosis Exhaustion" A look at the medical reasons for Dickens's death at the relatively early age of 58; Dickens's Literary Descendents; (This is a truncated description, leaving much out, but providing a good sense of this book.).