Names in Dickens: The Trouble with Dombey

That Charles Dickens tided six of his fifteen novels after his books' protagonists--Oliver Twist (1838), Nicholas Nickleby (1839), Barnaby Rudge (1841), Martin Chuzzlewit (1844), David Copperfield (1850), and LittleDorrit (1857)--indicates the importance that the author attached to naming. The...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Modern philology 2016-11, Vol.114 (2), p.388-410
Main Author: DOBRANSKI, STEPHEN B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)
English literature
Gothic period
Literary criticism
Novels
Philology
Writers
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Summary:That Charles Dickens tided six of his fifteen novels after his books' protagonists--Oliver Twist (1838), Nicholas Nickleby (1839), Barnaby Rudge (1841), Martin Chuzzlewit (1844), David Copperfield (1850), and LittleDorrit (1857)--indicates the importance that the author attached to naming. The titles of three of his other novels also feature the names of principal characters: The Pickwick Papers (1837), The Mysteiy of EdwinDrood (1870), and, the book that interests me here, Dombey and Son (1848). Dickens's preference for appellative titles no doubt reflects the abiding influence of eighteenth--century conventions--for example, of Moll Flanders (1722) or Tom Jones (1749). But Dickens also had a personal enthusiasm for naming: he frequently renamed himself, adopting early on the sobriquet "Boz" and later choosing such immodest monikers as "the Sparkler of Albion." Here, Dobranski examines the trouble with Dombey.
ISSN:0026-8232
1545-6951
DOI:10.1086/687303