Overview
The Uncommercial Traveller is a remarkable display of creative journalism from Dickens's final decade, balancing Sketches by Boz at the beginning of his career. The 37 short papers, which first appeared in his weekly journal All The Year Round, offer sensitive and penetrating perspectives on London, Britain, and France in the 1860s. In the company of the Traveller, readers undertake a series of journeys. We visit the scene of a disastrous shipwreck on Anglesey, the docklands at Liverpool, and the Chatham dockyard. We accompany the Traveller as he returns to the scene of his early childhood in 'Dullborough'. We cross the Channel in atrocious conditions, and we explore 'the French-Flemish country'. Twice, we join the local crowds for the gruesome entertainment offered by the Paris morgue. Nearer to Dickens's Covent Garden base we attend a popular theatre for a performance and a Sunday sermon. We visit a children's hospital, a lead factory, and a naval school. We tramp the city by night. We have repeated problems with restaurants. We hear weird stories, meet odd characters, and much more.Full of humour, sentiment, quirkiness; supremely assured in their command of style; astonishingly varied: these papers take a worthy place alongside the Dickens's late fictional masterpieces Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend. This is the first fully critical edition of The Uncommercial Traveller, based on detailed study of the surviving densely worked manuscripts and the early printed texts. The edition includes a full analytical essay, textual notes, and detailed explanatory notes, as well as a glossary of unusual terms and words used in senses likely to be unfamiliar to modern readers.
Full Product Details
Author: J. H. Alexander (Emeritus Reader in English, Emeritus Reader in English, University of Aberdeen)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 14.50cm
, Height: 3.50cm
, Length: 22.30cm
Weight: 0.776kg
ISBN: 9780192883018
ISBN 10: 0192883011
Pages: 560
Publication Date: 30 April 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
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Author Information
J. H. Alexander is a graduate of Oxford University (BLitt 1965, MA 1967, DPhil 1970) and was a member of the English Department at the University of Aberdeen from 1968 until 2001. He was founder editor of The Scott Newsletter from 1982 till his retirement, and editor of Scottish Literary Journal from 1991 to 1995. In 2013 he became an Honorary Fellow of the Association for Scottish Literature. He is a member of the Advisory Board for the Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens.
