Celebrating Dickens: The Victorian Studies Centre at 50

• Published in: Dickensian 2018-03, Vol.114 (504), p.15-16
• Main Authors: Dawson, Gowan, Shattock, Joanne
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: British & Irish literature; Dickens, Charles (1812-1870); English literature; Interdisciplinary aspects; Libraries; Mass media; Students; Titles; Victorian period; Wolff, Michael
• ISSN: 0012-2440

Among the first titles were A. W. N. Pugin's Contrasts, Charles Eastlake's Gothic Revival, G. A. Sala's Twice Round the Clock, W. C. Mearns's The Bitter Cry of Outcast London, Robert Chambers's Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and Mark Rutherford's Autobiography - another example of the interdisciplinarity that underpinned the work and the interests of members of the Centre. Fifty years on, the Victorian Studies Centre continues the tradition of interdisciplinary research and teaching and maintains its international links. Since Philip Collins's retirement, which was marked with the edited volume Dickens and Other Victorians (1988), Dickens Studies has remained an essential element of the Centre's research. The Victorian Studies Centre's half century was marked with a special exhibition in the University of Leicester's David Wilson Library, which was curated by our PhD students and drew on the Library's rich collection of nineteenth-century books and print media.