Dr Ushashi Dasgupta publishes new book on Charles Dickens

Dr Ushashi Dasgupta, The Jon and Julia Aisbitt Fellow and Tutor in English at Pembroke, has recently had a new book published with OUP titled Charles Dickens and the Properties of Fiction: The Lodger World. This title explores the significance of tenancy in the works of Dickens, and more broadly, the relationship between physical space, money and the human experience.

The majority of people in Victorian Britain rented, rather than owned, their homes. Dickens was fascinated by this state of compromise, and his fiction asks what rental culture means for practices of cohabitation, the relationship between loneliness and sociability, and the ways in which space is divided. Ultimately, for Dickens, thinking about rented space is also an opportunity to think about storytelling.

In a recent video for Pembroke Connects, Ushashi discussed several of the concepts that can be found in the book. Examining the example of David Copperfield, one of Dickens’ most famous novels, Ushashi commented: ‘Dickens frequently ponders the relationship between space and self. The way we feel about our most familiar environments, such as our rooms and homes, can fluctuate over the course of a single day.’

The book was released on the 20th of May.