Book dossier

Dickens and crime

by Philip Arthur William Collins

This study draws on unfamiliar material in Dickens' periodicals, travel-books, and letters, and the memoirs of his friends, as well as on the novels, shows how his "shaping spirit of imagination" worked upon the "originals" of Inspector Bucket, Alderman Cute, the magistrate and model prisoners in 'David Copperfield,' and many other characters and episodes. Prisons and murder are the main topics; other include the police, the courts, and hanging.