Reveals the dark underside of Charles Dickens's work in the light of contemporary literary and cultural theory. Exploring transgressions and perversities in his work, this collection of essays focuses on the marginal figures (the Jew, the corpse), improbable concerns (idleness, insomnia), unlikely spaces (the crypt, the shop window) and radical voices (republican, homoerotic) in his novels. The authors of these essays consider Dickens to be the most central and also the most ex-centric Victorian figure, and suggest that his work provides a rich field of study for feminist, poststructuralist and psychoanalytic readings.