Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Case of the Initial Letter: Charles Dickens and the Politics of the Dual Alphabet

The Case of the Initial Letter: Charles Dickens and the Politics of the Dual Alphabet

Edwards, Gavin

Hardcover

Series: Interventions: Rethinking the Nineteenth Century

Literary CriticismFiction Anthologies

ISBN10: 1526146290
ISBN13: 9781526146298
Publisher: Manchester Univ Pr
Published: Jul 28 2020
Pages: 184
Weight: 0.80
Height: 0.50 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
The book analyses attempts by Dickens and other nineteenth-century writers to challenge established ways of using the distinction between upper and lower case letters, in the interests of a wider radicalism. It discusses Dickens's satire - on 'Shares' in Our Mutual Friend, on Paul Dombey's position as the 'Son' of Dombey and Son - alongside the proto-modernist typography of suffragist poet Augusta Webster and the work of Marx's translators transforming German conventions of capitalisation into English under the influence of Dickens and Carlyle. Placing these innovations within the history of the dual alphabet from its invention by Carolingian scribes to its rejection by modernist poets and the Bauhaus printers, the book tracks the dual alphabet through Dickens's manuscripts, corrected proofs, and the 'prompt copies' for his public Readings, highlighting distinct ways in which writing, printing and speech produce meaning.

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