I wallow in words: Dickens, journalism and public affairs, 1831-1838.

The primary materials on which the thesis is based are the files of the periodicals for which Dickens worked, or to which he contributed, as a young man: the True Sun, the Mirror of Parliament, the Morning Chronicle, the Monthly Karazine, Bell's Life in London, the Carlton Chronicle, and the Examiner. Beathley's iscollany is omitted, for reasons stated in the Preface. The first chapter attempts to untangle the vexed question of exactly when Dickens was working for the True Sun and the Mirror of Parliament. Chapters 2 to 5 outline the political and other tondoncies of the various publications, and discuss the particular approaches to public issues associated with radicalism and Whiggery. Dickens worked as a parliamentary reporter for some five years during the period under survey; consideration is given to his lasting attitude to Parliament, and to the questions of what he night have absorbed from these publications and the nature of his work as a general reporter for the Morning Chronicle. Chapter 6 discusses the Sketehes by Boz in the light of the preceding considerations of the journals in which they first appeared. The remaining chapters focus upon some of the public issues which were prominent, and examine the extent to which Dickens may have come into contact with some current philosophics. An Appendix gives details of the first publication of one of his sketches, believed to be hitherto unnoted.