This is the first major study of Dickens's villains. They embody, John argues, the crucial fusion between the "deviant" and "theatrical" aspects of his writing. Though there have been many studies of both the macabre and the dramatic Dickens, this book sets up a dialogue between these two main strands and suggests a new way understanding the cultural and political implications of his melodramatic aesthetics.

• Note on the text


• Abbreviations


• Introduction


• I: Melodrama, Villainy, Acting


• 1: Intellectual Incorrectness: Melodrama, Populism, Cultural Hierarchies


• 2: The Villains of Stage Melodrama: Romanticism and the Politics of Character


• 3: Acting and Ambivalence: Periodical Passions


• II: Dickens's Novels


• 4: Melodramatic Poetics and the Gothic Villain: Interiority, Deviance, Emotion


• 5: Twisting the Newgate Tale: Popular Culture, Pleasure and the Politics of Genre


• 6: Dickens and Dandyism: Masking Interiority


• 7: Byronic Baddies, Melodramatic Anxieties


• 8: Sincerely Deviant Women


• Afterword


• Bibliography


• Index