Dickens Novels as Verse

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By Joseph P. Jordan ’99

Published Jan. 21, 2016

(Farleigh Dickinson University Press) This book of literary criticism argues that Dickens’ novels are, like verse, made up of intricate, largely unnoticeable tissues of alliteration-like patterning, which thread through the work and provide it with coherence. Full of close analyses of passages, it is designed to help all readers grasp why Dickens seems to be a greater writer than the quality of his ideas might lead us to expect. Jordan is a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley.

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PAW’s December 2025 cover, with a photo of Michael Park ’98.
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Judge Michael Park ’98; shifts in DEI initiatives; a night at the new art museum.