From the Editor

Abstract

From the Editor Dominic Rainsford Whether David Copperfield was the hero of his own life is a matter for inexhaustible debate–for him and the rest of us. He is now, however, the hero of his own issue of Dickens Quarterly. This has happened, like so many things in life, quite by chance. In other words, this is an "unofficial" special issue. While Bleak House has been, for some time, the most written-about Dickens novel, it is very good to see that Dickens's "favourite child" also continues to attract strong interest, resulting in essays of the caliber of those included here, all of which, I think, have something new and important to say about the novel. Like almost all of Dickens's writing, Copperfield has the paradoxical merit of being both sweet and disturbing, as we can see in the two pictorial interpretations of David meeting Betsey Trotwood shown below: the first by Phiz, in a delicately tinted version; the second by the obscure Danish modernist and Aunt Betsey-obsessive, Christian Kongstad Petersen.1 [End Page 5] Click for larger view View full resolution "I make myself known to my aunt". Frontispiece by Hablot K. Browne ("Phiz") to David Copperfield, London Edition, Caxton Publishing Company, undated, c. 1900. [End Page 6] Click for larger view View full resolution Christian Kongstad Petersen (1862–1940), David Copperfield opsøger sin tante, Miss Betsey Trotwood i Dover (David Copperfield Seeks out his Aunt, Miss Betsey Trotwood, in Dover), pen and ink, scraped paper, 421 x 313 mm, 1925 and 1927; The Royal Collection of Graphic Art, National Gallery of Denmark, KKS1992-156. [End Page 7] Dominic Rainsford Aarhus University Footnotes 1. For many more reproductions of Kongstad Petersen's Dickens-inspired art, see my article on him in Dickens Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 4 (2017). Copyright © 2023 The Dickens Society