Chapter 2 of the author's Dickens and the Rhetoric of Laughter, which Clarendon Press published in 1971. It has been included in the Victorian Web with the kind permission of the author and of the Clarendon Press, which retains copyright.
Numbers in brackets indicate page breaks in the print edition and thus allow users of VW to cite or locate the original page numbers.
Where possible, bibliographical information appears in the form of in-text citations, which refer to the bibliography at the end of each document.
Non-bibliographic notes appears as text links.
This web version is a project whose first stages were supported by the University Scholars Programme of the National University of Singapore. Scanning, basic HTML conversion, and proofreading were carried out by Gerhard Rolletschek, a Postgraduate Visiting Scholar from the University of Munich, working under the direction of George P. Landow, who added links to materials in VW.
Frontmatter
Introduction
Chapter Three. Oliver Twist: Laughter and the Rhetoric of Attack
Chapter Four. The Old Curiosity Shop: Laughter and Pathos
Chapter Five. Barnaby Rudge: Laughter and Structure
Chapter Six. Martin Chuzzlewit: The Comedy of Accomodation
Chapter Seven. David Copperfield: Laughter and Point of View
Chapter Eight. Little Dorrit: The Attack on Comedy