That the idea of Dickens and the adjective
'Dickensian' continue to have a cultural resonance which
extends beyond the book-buying public almost two
centuries after Dickens's birth is testimony to his
sense of himself as a mass cultural artist. Juliet John
contends that Dickens's popularity is unique, different
even from that of Shakespeare because, writing in 'the
first age of mass culture', he was instinctively aware
of the changed context of art, or of the need for
popular art to find its place in an age of mechanical
reproduction. Dickens and Mass Culture describes the
ways in which Dickens envisioned and engineered his
cultural pervasiveness, the media that enabled it, and
the posthumous processes - technological, commercial,
ideological, and emotional - that have perpetuated it.
The first part examines Dickens's cultural vision and
practice - his model of authorship, journalism, public
readings, relations with America, and the machine. The
second explores Dickens's screen and 'heritage'
afterlives, as well as the visitor attraction, 'Dickens
World'. His longtime presence on the ten-pound note
symbolizes the book's guiding interest in the
relationship between the commercial, cultural, and
political aspects of Dickens's populist vision and
legacy. John argues that the aspects of his art that
have underscored critical ambivalence about Dickens -
his relations with money, mechanical reproduction, and
the mass market in particular - have ultimately ensured
both his iconic cultural status and his centrality to
the academic canon.
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