Case of the Initial Letter (eBook)

Charles Dickens and the Politics of the Dual Alphabet

Gavin Edwards (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2020
184 Seiten
Manchester University Press (Verlag)
978-1-5261-4628-1 (ISBN)

Infos

Tracing the dual alphabet from its intervention by Carolingian scribes to its rejection by modernist poets and the Bauhaus printers, Edwards shows how Charles Dickens and other nineteenth century writers used the distinction between upper and lower case letters in unconventional ways and in the interests of a wider radicalism.

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The book analyses attempts by Dickens and other nineteenth-century writers to challenge established ways of using the distinction between upper and lower case letters, in the interests of a wider radicalism. It discusses Dickens's satire - on 'Shares' in Our Mutual Friend, on Paul Dombey's position as the 'Son' of Dombey and Son - alongside the proto-modernist typography of suffragist poet Augusta Webster and the work of Marx's translators transforming German conventions of capitalisation into English under the influence of Dickens and Carlyle. Placing these innovations within the history of the dual alphabet from its invention by Carolingian scribes to its rejection by modernist poets and the Bauhaus printers, the book tracks the dual alphabet through Dickens's manuscripts, corrected proofs, and the 'prompt copies' for his public Readings, highlighting distinct ways in which writing, printing and speech produce meaning. -- .

Autor

Gavin Edwards is Emeritus Professor of English at the University of South Wales

Inhalt

1 Introduction: The case of the initial letter
2 Typographic leveling in an age of revolution
3 The Land of Liberty
4 Dombey - and Son – and Daughter
5 People, things, and abstractions
6 Print capitalism
7 Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham
8 Writin’large
9 PIP and D O C T O R M A R I G O L D
10 Dickens, the suffragists and proto-modernism

Bibliography
Index

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 21.7.2020
• Reihe/Serie: Interventions: Rethinking the Nineteenth Century
• Zusatzinfo: 16 black & white illustrations
• Verlagsort: Manchester
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Anthologien
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Schlagworte: Capital • CASE • Class • Politics • printing • radical • Speaking • Suffragists • Translating • Writing
• ISBN-10: 1-5261-4628-2 / 1526146282
• ISBN-13: 978-1-5261-4628-1 / 9781526146281