Merchant, Peter

The figure of the child and the imaginative and emotional capacities associated with children have always been sites of lively contestation for readers and critics of Dickens. In this book, scholars explore the function of the child and childhood within Dickens's imagination and reflect on the cultural resonance of his engagement with this topic.

Religious faith, myths and legends have always been present in literature. However, their role has changed over time. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, with the diminishing role of religion in European society, writers with some kind of belief system, whether religious or political, have tended to use myth in two different ways.