Dr Paul Schlicke is an internationally renowned Dickens scholar, whose works include Dickens and Popular Entertainment (1985), several Dickens critical editions, including Oxford World's Classics editions of Hard Times (1989) and Nicholas Nickleby (1990), as well as Coffee with Dickens (2008), and numerous articles and reviews.

This anniversary edition of the Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens celebrates 200 years since the birth of one of Britain's most popular authors. Covering his life, his works, his reputation, and his cultural context in over 500 A-Z articles, this is the most reliable and accessible reference work on Dickens available

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Reissued to celebrate the bicentenary of Charles Dickens's birth, The Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens (formerly The Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens) draws together an unparalleled diversity of information on one of Britain's greatest writers: covering his life, his works, his reputation, and his cultural context. Featuring more than 500 A-Z articles, it throws new and often unexpected light on the most familiar of Dickens's works, andexplores the experiences, events, and literature on which he drew. There is also a chronology of Dickens' life, a list of characters in his works, a list of entries by theme, a family tree, three maps, an invaluable bibliography, and a general index.Compiled by a distinguished editorial team, and written in a lucid, easy style that would have pleased him, The Oxford Companion to Charles Dickens offers a more authoritative and accessible range of information than any other reference work on Dickens.Aspects covered include:The private man and the public figure - his family, friends, colleagues, and convictionsThe age in which he lived and worked - the people, events, and institutions that informed his writingThe places that were significant to him - his homes, his London, and the countries he visitedThe ideas and social theories of the time - the attitudes he satirized and the ideologies he advocatedThe works on which his reputation rests - their history, structure, inspiration, and significance