{"product_id":"dickens-the-novelist","title":"Dickens the Novelist","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cb\u003eThe Great Tradition\u003c\/b\u003e, published in 1948, F. R. Leavis seemed to rate the work of Charles Dickens - with the exception of \u003cb\u003eHard Times\u003c\/b\u003e - as lacking the seriousness and formal control of the true masters of English fiction. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBy 1970, when \u003cb\u003eDickens the Novelist\u003c\/b\u003e was published on the first centenary of the writer's death, Leavis and his lifelong collaborator Q. D. (Queenie) Leavis, had changed their minds. 'Our purpose', they wrote, 'is to enforce as unanswerably as possible the conviction that Dickens was one of the greatest of creative writers . . .'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn seven typically robust and uncompromising chapters, the Leavises grapple with the evaluation of a writer who was then still open to dismissal as a mere entertainer, a caricaturist not worthy of discussion in the same breath as Henry James. Q. D. Leavis shows, for example, how deeply influential \u003cb\u003eDavid Copperfield\u003c\/b\u003e was on the work of Tolstoy, and explores the symbolic richness of the nightmare world of \u003cb\u003eBleak House\u003c\/b\u003e. F. R. Leavis reprints his famous essay on \u003cb\u003eHard Times\u003c\/b\u003e, with its moral critique of utilitarianism, and reveals the imaginative influence of Blake on \u003cb\u003eLittle Dorrit\u003c\/b\u003e. Q. D. Leavis contributes a pathbreaking chapter on the importance of Dickens's illustrators to the effect of his work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Faber \u0026 Faber","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54243533717848,"sku":"9780571243600","price":22.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9780571243600.jpg?v=1777704325","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/dickens-the-novelist","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}