Dombey and Son: Charles Dickens and the Business of Family Monthly Course at the Rosenbach Syllabus

Location: The Rosenbach 2008-2010 Delancey Place, Philadelphia, PA 19103

Time: Tuesdays, 6:00-7:45pm (for dates, see schedule below)

Instructor: Christine Woody, Assistant Professor, Widener University [email protected] / (347) 243-1680

Contacts: Edward Pettit, Sunstein Manager of Public Programs [email protected] / (215) 732-1600 ext. 135

Texts:

If you are in the market for a copy of our book, please consider seeking out the edition listed below. This will facilitate our discussions as pagination will be the same. However, please do feel free to use edition you may already own of our novel.

Dickens, Charles. Dombey and Son. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0140435467.

Goals & Approaches:

Over our four monthly class sessions, we will dive deep into one of Dickens’ less-read masterpieces. Dealings with the Firm of Dombey and Son: Wholesale, Retail and for Exportation, serialized between October 1846 and April 1848, deals with the fate of the business and family (inextricably intertwined) of one Paul Dombey. The novel provides new insight into the connections between many of Dickens’ well-known social concerns—class conflict, cruelty to children, unhappy marriages, and the pressures of Victorian capitalism. As we wend our way through the novel’s rich tapestry of competing plotlines and compelling social portraiture, we will have the opportunity not only to consider how it reconfigures the themes and questions of more familiar novels (David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and their ilk) but also to examine what Dombey and Son reveals about the questions we still ask ourselves today about the competing values of work and family and the process of reconciling them. Schedule of meetings and readings:

October 1st – Chapters 1-15 November 5th – Chapters 16-30 December 3rd – Chapters 31-45 January 7th – Chapters 46-62