This anthology explores all the major critical approaches to Dickens of the 1970s-1990s, including psychoanalytic, deconstructive, discourse-analytic, feminist and Marxist, enabling the reader to compare and contrast different treatments of particular Dickens novels.

Seeking the "meaning to life," at age fifty, Alan Byrne took up meditation, and found inner peace. The challenges of life still pulled at him though. He became totally lost, that is until, with a vision guided him, he put his faith into an unknown source. With trust by his side he walked away from his successful business. Five days later, while walking on the foreshores of the beautiful Sydney harbour, what he describes as the Divine Light, penetrated his chest. This life changing experience awakened his soul to a more enlightenment and fulfilling life. His courageous story will light the...