Introduction
Louis James reminds us in our interview with him in the past issue of Dickens Studies Annual: Essays on Victorian Fiction (vol. 55, no. 2) that when he was starting as a university professor in England, “academic critics often refused to give Dickens the status of a major author, seeing him as a lightweight entertainer” (267). It is well established that in 1940 Edmund Wilson “announced” that there was much more complexity in Dickens’s characters and stories than previous critics (especially Victorian reviewers) saw. He championed the symbolism and artistic creativity in Dickens’s novels and stories, their social criticism, and identified a duality of a melodramatic good and bad in everything that runs through Dickens’s works as well as his life. Image that. And that is what generations of scholars led by the explosion of criticism by newly minted PhDs in newly expanded university systems in America did in the 1960s and 1970s . . . and continue to do. Dickens survives. Even in a time when reading at the college level is declining precipitously, Dickens retains his relevancy. Certainly, thanks in part to providing prime material for all the obvious reasons for outstanding filmic and theatrical adaptations.Relevancy, adaptations, and the changing hierarchy of Victorian fiction writers are very much topics for our times. Back in the day, when the go-to editions of Victorian Fiction: A Guide to Research (1964 and 1978), for example, were published and obligatory (remember that, anyone?), Lewis Carroll was not even included. Today? In terms of the relevancy of ideas, adaptations, global popular culture, language, mass publications, and more, his works are in vogue on college reading lists and Netflix. Not the case for last generation’s brand names of Victorian scribners. Is he a major author? Alice is only the third most translated work of fiction in the world (second if you don’t count the Bible).Scholarly publication is also—surprise, surprise—in transition in this digital age. Will journals in print even survive? Will single-author or period journals persist? Dickens appears healthy. University and scholarly presses? Some, perhaps, but operating under different financial rules. The scholarly journal publishing business reminds us of the theater business as explained in the movie Shakespeare in Love:The cycle of producing DSA essentially works out to the timing of one issue appearing coinciding with the submission of the next issue. So, there are always insurmountable problems on the road to disaster. A copyediting decision has to go to arbitration? Never happens. Authors attempting to rewrite long passages in the proofreading stage? A commissioned essay not turned in on time? Quelle horreur! The typesetting (or typesetter) introduces a series of endnote and bibliographical errors at the 11th hour? Someone gets sick or divorced; death elements are introduced? Such is life. Could be an outside copyeditor or contractor . . . or the in-house production manager(s). The computer ate your homework latest revision, discovered only after copyediting? Stuff happens. But after fifty years of DSA, the journal always comes out on time.It’s a mystery.Once again, we wish to express our gratitude to those who helped bring this new issue to life, especially the readers, contributors, and authors. At the CUNY Graduate Center, we are pleased to thank and praise our graduate assistant from the PhD Program in English, once again, Katharine Williams. We acknowledge the offices and administrators of the PhD Program in English as well as the graduate center administration, especially the business office.The journals department at Penn State University Press remains an able and friendly facilitator for sure, and we embrace our colleagues there: Julie Lambert, journals manager; Astrid Meyer, journals managing editor; and Leah Noel, production manager.—The Editors