Charles Dickens: Transnational Responses and Cultural Imaginaries

Abstract

In this chapter, I first discuss the rise of interest in Charles Dickens's worldwide presence and relate it to the “global” turn in Dickens scholarship and Victorian studies more generally. I then draw upon existing research on related topics and my own study on the publication and circulation of Dickensian texts in early twentieth‐century China and Hong Kong in order to explore how diverse creative and critical responses to his work in specific sociocultural contexts at particular moments of history contribute to his international stature. It places particular emphasis on the ways in which the realism that Dickens's works purportedly embody – such as his portrayal of the urban experience and his engagement with contemporary social issues – have become a source of imagination and, at times, inspiration for those who confront the question of modernity – in its various manifestations – in their own space and time.