Charles Dickens's Dombey and Son: An Annotated Bibliography

Dombey and Son, Dickens's novel of pride, mercantilism, and the family, is generally considered the first work of his artistic maturity. In this annotated bibliography Leon Litvack carefully considers over 900 individual items, documenting the novel's composition and publication, as well as its popular and critical standing. As well examining Dickens's text, he assesses reviews, the reactions of contemporaries, adaptations, and the various editions of the novel published over the last 150 years. The largest portion of the book features an analysis of critical studies-primarily in English, but also in French and German-which have illuminated this classic text.

Litvack asserts that Dombey and Son marks a number of "firsts" for Dickens: it is the first novel for which a complete set of working notes exists; it is also the work from which he first gleaned the idea for the famous series of public readings which he gave in Britain and the United States. Above all, however, it is the novel which is inextricably tied to his own life, as no previous one had been.

Throughout the bibliography Litvack emphasizes the broad range of readers and scholars that Dombey and Son has attracted. His accessible critical annotations will be of assistance to students and teachers alike, and will help to justify Dickens's "strong belief" that "if any of my books are read years hence, Dombey will be remembered as among the best of them."