Robert L. Patten

"Marley was dead, to begin with." Why does the most beloved of Christmas books open with a death? What has death to do with Christmas and New Years, and with Dickens's Christmas books and stories over his entire life? This book starts at the Paris Morgue and takes Dickens through his Christmas experiences from childhood and beyond, his celebrations of the season, and the sorrows that he often reviews in the New Year. Robert L. Patten weaves together Dickens's life, career, writings, journalism, travel, theatrical presentations, and religious convictions to offer a richly designed and entertaining narrative, fulsomely illustrated, of the manifold ways Dickens figures the spirit and traditions of the winter holidays in Victorian England. Both the gothic of ghosts and retribution and what he saw as the grotesque of lower-class enjoyment surface importantly in Dickens's fantasies. This volume discloses many hitherto overlooked connections between Dickens's writings and life and arrives at some surprising conclusions about Dickens's imagination, understanding of the conditions and meaning of Christian life, and the failures of British society to meet the pressing needs of its people. Not only does it address the public reception of these writings; it also tracks the responses and understandings of Dickens's illustrators, friends who found novel ways of telling, and mis-telling, the stories.

Publishing About Dickens in Hard Times. The Culture and Politics of Academic Publishing.

In the conclusion to the biography of the caricaturist and illustrator George Cruikshank, Robert Patten narrates the second half of the artist's long career. It is an examination of Cruikshank's cooperations with some of the writers who are known as remakers of British fiction, particularly Harrison Ainsworth, Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray. Patten also examines Cruikshank's illustrated periodicals, especially the Comic Almernack, which preceded Punch, and which contains an invaluable record of three decades of London life in the artist's hundreds of etchings. Beginning in 1847, Cruikshank became a leading advocate of Temperance, producing two dramatic series of prints, a gigantic oil painting, and many other forms of propaganda. Patten provides the fullest account ever of Cruikshank's many friendships and contextualises his art, showing how the subjects, mediums, treatments, publishers and audiences affected the artist's productions. He is especially good at elucidating Dickens' very public quarrel with Cruikshank, a quarrel that severed twenty years of friendship. The artist's friendship with John Ruskin, who became for a time Cruikshank's patron and champion, is also illuminated by Patten. Cruikshank's later years were not successful either artistically or financially. He was bedevilled by economic crisis, inadequate commissions, and the upkeep of two households - one with his second wife and the other with his mistress and ten children. This volume of the biography foregrounds the changing image of the artist, as he refashioned himself and is refashioned by others to suit or to offend Victorian sensibilities. The intertwining of charity and art, Temperance and propaganda, children's imagination and adult's criticism, Scots heritage and English propriety, complicated and confused Cruikshank's declining years. Patten's engaging and energetic narrative sorts out the contradictory impulses within Cruikshank's life, times and art. This title is named as the Best Biography of the '90s by "The Guardian". Also available in this series is: "Volume I: 1792-1835"

The etchings and wood-engravings of George Cruikshank (1792-1878) recorded, commented on and satirised his times to such an extent that they have frequently been used to represent the age. Cruikshank, a popular artist in the propaganda war against Napoleon, an ardent campaigner for Reform and Temperance, and the foremost illustrator of such classics as Grimms' Fairy Tales, The etchings and wood-engravings of George Cruikshank (1792-1878) recorded, commented on and satirised his times to such an extent that they have frequently been used to represent the age. Cruikshank, a popular artist in the propaganda war against Napoleon, an ardent campaigner for Reform and Temperance, and the foremost illustrator of such classics as Grimms' Fairy Tales, Scott's novels and Dicken's Oliver Twist, is known for his versatility, imagination, humour and incisive images. His long life, marked by a ceaseless struggle to win recognition for his art, intersected with the lives of many of Britain's important political, social and cultural leaders. In this first volume of Robert Patten's two-volume biography, which covers the artist's Regency caricatures and early book illustrations, Patten demonstrates the ways in which Cruikshank was, as his contemporaries frequently declared, the Hogarth of the nineteenth century. Having reviewed over 8,500 unpublished letters and most of Cruikshank's 12,000 or more printed images, Patten gives a thorough and reliable account of the artist's career. He puts Cruikshank's achievement into a variety of larger contexts - publishing history, political and cultural history, the traditions of figuration practised by Cruikshank's contemporaries, and the literary and social productions of nineteenth century Britain. This biography provides both the general reader and the specialist with a wealth of new information conveyed in lively, non-technical prose. Patten's book contributes to current investigation of the rich interactions between high art and low, texts and pictures, politics and imagination. Scott's novels and Dicken's Oliver Twist, is known for his versatility, imagination, humour and incisive images. His long life, marked by a ceaseless struggle to win recognition for his art, intersected with the lives of many of Britain's important political, social and cultural leaders. In this first volume of Robert Patten's two-volume biography, which covers the artist's Regency caricatures and early book illustrations, Patten demonstrates the ways in which Cruikshank was, as his contemporaries frequently declared, the Hogarth of the nineteenth century. Having reviewed over 8,500 unpublished letters and most of Cruikshank's 12,000 or more printed images, Patten gives a thorough and reliable account of the artist's career. He puts Cruikshank's achievement into a variety of larger contexts - publishing history, political and cultural history, the traditions of figuration practised by Cruikshank's contemporaries, and the literary and social productions of nineteenth century Britain. This biography provides both the general reader and the specialist with a wealth of new information conveyed in lively, non-technical prose. Patten's book contributes to current investigation of the rich interactions between high art and low, texts and pictures, politics and imagination. The etchings and wood-engravings of George Cruikshank (1792-1878) recorded, commented on and satirised his times to such an extent that they have frequently been used to represent the age. Cruikshank, a popular artist in the propaganda war against Napoleon, an ardent campaigner for Reform and Temperance, and the foremost illustrator of such classics as Grimms' Fairy Tales, The etchings and wood-engravings of George Cruikshank (1792-1878) recorded, commented on and satirised his times to such an extent that they have frequently been used to represent the age. Cruikshank, a popular artist in the propaganda war against Napoleon, an ardent campaigner for Reform and Temperance, and the foremost illustrator of such classics as Grimms' Fairy Tales, Scott's novels and Dicken's Oliver Twist, is known for his versatility, imagination, humour and incisive images. His long life, marked by a ceaseless struggle to win recognition for his art, intersected with the lives of many of Britain's important political, social and cultural leaders. In this first volume of Robert Patten's two-volume biography, which covers the artist's Regency caricatures and early book illustrations, Patten demonstrates the ways in which Cruikshank was, as his contemporaries frequently declared, the Hogarth of the nineteenth century. Having reviewed over 8,500 unpublished letters and most of Cruikshank's 12,000 or more printed images, Patten gives a thorough and reliable account of the artist's career. He puts Cruikshank's achievement into a variety of larger contexts - publishing history, political and cultural history, the traditions of figuration practised by Cruikshank's contemporaries, and the literary and social productions of nineteenth century Britain. This biography provides both the general reader and the specialist with a wealth of new information conveyed in lively, non-technical prose. Patten's book contributes to current investigation of the rich interactions between high art and low, texts and pictures, politics and imagination. Scott's novels and Dicken's Oliver Twist, is known for his versatility, imagination, humour and incisive images. His long life, marked by a ceaseless struggle to win recognition for his art, intersected with the lives of many of Britain's important political, social and cultural leaders. In this first volume of Robert Patten's two-volume biography, which covers the artist's Regency caricatures and early book illustrations, Patten demonstrates the ways in which Cruikshank was, as his contemporaries frequently declared, the Hogarth of the nineteenth century. Having reviewed over 8,500 unpublished letters and most of Cruikshank's 12,000 or more printed images, Patten gives a thorough and reliable account of the artist's career. He puts Cruikshank's achievement into a variety of larger contexts - publishing history, political and cultural history, the traditions of figuration practised by Cruikshank's contemporaries, and the literary and social productions of nineteenth century Britain. This biography provides both the general reader and the specialist with a wealth of new information conveyed in lively, non-technical prose. Patten's book contributes to current investigation of the rich interactions between high art and low, texts and pictures, politics and imagination. The etchings and wood-engravings of George Cruikshank (1792-1878) recorded, commented on and satirised his times to such an extent that they have frequently been used to represent the age. Cruikshank, a popular artist in the propaganda war against Napoleon, an ardent campaigner for Reform and Temperance, and the foremost illustrator of such classics as Grimms' Fairy Tales, The etchings and wood-engravings of George Cruikshank (1792-1878) recorded, commented on and satirised his times to such an extent that they have frequently been used to represent the age. Cruikshank, a popular artist in the propaganda war against Napoleon, an ardent campaigner for Reform and Temperance, and the foremost illustrator of such classics as Grimms' Fairy Tales, Scott's novels and Dicken's Oliver Twist, is known for his versatility, imagination, humour and incisive images. His long life, marked by a ceaseless struggle to win recognition for his art, intersected with the lives of many of Britain's important political, social and cultural leaders. In this first volume of Robert Patten's two-volume biography, which covers the artist's Regency caricatures and early book illustrations, Patten demonstrates the ways in which Cruikshank was, as his contemporaries frequently declared, the Hogarth of the nineteenth century. Having reviewed over 8,500 unpublished letters and most of Cruikshank's 12,000 or more printed images, Patten gives a thorough and reliable account of the artist's career. He puts Cruikshank's achievement into a variety of larger contexts - publishing history, political and cultural history, the traditions of figuration practised by Cruikshank's contemporaries, and the literary and social productions of nineteenth century Britain. This biography provides both the general reader and the specialist with a wealth of new information conveyed in lively, non-technical prose. Patten's book contributes to current investigation of the rich interactions between high art and low, texts and pictures, politics and imagination. Scott's novels and Dicken's Oliver Twist, is known for his versatility, imagination, humour and incisive images. His long life, marked by a ceaseless struggle to win recognition for his art, intersected with the lives of many of Britain's important political, social and cultural leaders. In this first volume of Robert Patten's two-volume biography, which covers the artist's Regency caricatures and early book illustrations, Patten demonstrates the ways in which Cruikshank was, as his contemporaries frequently declared, the Hogarth of the nineteenth century. Having reviewed over 8,500 unpublished letters and most of Cruikshank's 12,000 or more printed images, Patten gives a thorough and reliable account of the artist's career. He puts Cruikshank's achievement into a variety of larger contexts - publishing history, political and cultural history, the traditions of figuration practised by Cruikshank's contemporaries, and the literary and social productions of nineteenth century Britain. This biography provides both the general reader and the specialist with a wealth of new information conveyed in lively, non-technical prose. Patten's book contributes to current investigation of the rich interactions between high art and low, texts and pictures, politics and imagination.

In considering the whole range of Dickens' relations with his English and overseas publishers, Professor Patten relates the story of the novelist's social encounters, violent breaches, and uneasy alliances with John Macrone, Richard Bentley, Edward and Frederic Chapman, William Hall, Bernhard Tauchnitz, William Bradbury, F. M. Evans, and his American publishers in a compelling record of personal and professional associations. Private drama is subordinated to a narrative of a very special kind of venture', serial publication. Drawing extensively on the accounts rendered to Dickens by Bradbury and Evans, and Chapman and Hall every six months from 1846, Robert Patten traces the fluctuating fortunes of each of the books, from Sketches by Boz to Edwin Drood. e shows how Dickens took advantage of developments in the law, popular literacy, and the new techniques of publishing through the periodical issue of his writings, and through four widely-circulated reprint series that vastly extended the market for his work. He identifies the sources and size of Dicken's income, comparing it to that of his contemporaries; and the costs and sales, the printing history, and the profits and losses on all books where Dickens shared copyright are set out in detail in four appendices. The study skilfully establishes that the conditions of publishing had much to do with the shape and success of Dicken's career. This edition includes two new chapters. The first narrates how this bibliobiography' came to be conceived, at a time in the 1960s when Dickens was lauded as a genius' but still thought to have written such lengthy books because he was paid by the line. In the substantial second addition, Patten details the distribution of Dickens's estate to his many heirs, traces the devolution of the patronym as it extended to the family, and then to fans ('Dickensians'), surveys the spread of publishers' to include presses and texts in translation all over the world, studies the transfer of Dickens's writing to radio and visual media, and concludes with an analysis of the audited figures for the sales in nine countries of over 2000 different editions of Dickens during the global celebrations for the bicentenary of his birth.

Dickens' rise to fame and his world-wide popularity were by no means inevitable. He started out with no clear career in mind, drifting in and out of the theatre, journalism and editing before finding unexpected success as a creative writer. Taking account of everything known about Dickens' apprentice years, Robert L. Patten narrates the fierce struggle Dickens then had to create an alter ego, Boz, and later to contain and extinguish him. His revision of Dickens' biography in the context of early Victorian social and political history and print culture opens up a more unstable, yet more fascinating, portrait of Dickens. The book tells the story of how Dickens created an authorial persona that highlighted certain attributes and concealed others about his life, talent and publications. This complicated narrative of struggle, determination, dead ends and new beginnings is as gripping as one of Dickens' own novels.

Dickens' rise to fame and his world-wide popularity were by no means inevitable. He started out with no clear career in mind, drifting in and out of the theatre, journalism and editing before finding unexpected success as a creative writer. Taking account of everything known about Dickens' apprentice years, Robert L. Patten narrates the fierce struggle Dickens then had to create an alter ego, Boz, and later to contain and extinguish him. His revision of Dickens' biography in the context of early Victorian social and political history and print culture opens up a more unstable, yet more fascinating, portrait of Dickens. The book tells the story of how Dickens created an authorial persona that highlighted certain attributes and concealed others about his life, talent and publications. This complicated narrative of struggle, determination, dead ends and new beginnings is as gripping as one of Dickens' own novels.