Dickens was one of the most theatrical of novelists, as the editors of this splendid edition make clear, and yet his plays have been relatively disregarded. With this publication we can now, at last, give full attention to Dickens the playwright, his scripts and their textual variants, accompanied by a fresh, incisive and substantial scholarly introduction and a selection of contemporary illustrations. The editors should be rewarded in their hopes that this publication will promote new efforts to stage productions of some of these zestful plays.