The Nature of Mr Pickwick's Change

James R. Kincaid, Aerol Arnold Professor of English, University of Southern California

Note 3 to Chapter 2 of the author's Dickens and the Rhetoric of Laughter which Clarendon Press published in 1972. It has been included in the Victorian Web with the kind permission of the author and of the Clarendon Press, which retains copyright.

Not that anyone except Dickens has really denied it. The real issue is the nature of the change and whether it is organic or arbitrary. Virtually every discussion of the novel has something to say on these points.

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Last modified: 1 May 2001