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From the moment of Pickwick until his sudden death in 1870 , Dickens essentially owned the Victorian novel on both sides of the Atlantic . These tinglings and reflections and re-reflections did not change their position ; but there was one gleam that had motion . Today , the adjective " Dickensian " has come to be a complicated literary compliment , a word that simultaneously declares an author to have a great gift and insinuates that he or she has yet to get that gift under control ( the epithet " Dickensian " has been applied to writers as diverse as Peter Carey , Zadie Smith , and Salman Rushdie ) . " It 's been identified by both the court and both sides as having some value as a precedent in establishing the liability and the value of these cases . He spent that afternoon as a convalescent who expected a dear visitor might have spent it - - in a delicious vacancy , smiling now and then as if in sleep , and ever lifting drowsy and contented eyes to his alluring surroundings . This course takes the casual absorption of Irish writing into English literary history as both inspiration and object of study . ATLANTIC CITY , N.J. ( AP ) A lawyer for an Idaho postal worker who blames the painkiller Vioxx for his September 2001 heart attack tried on Friday to portray a Merck & Co. researcher as less of a scientist than a shrewd businesswoman.In the second trial over the safety of Vioxx , attorney David Buchanan questioned Merck researcher Dr. Alise Reicin about her performance reviews in which she was described as " a tireless defender of the Vioxx franchise . This posting can take a number of forms - - it can consist of a series of questions about the reading for that week , or it can consist of an effort to sketch out an idea or even a short reading of an assigned text or texts , or it can consist of some combination of the two . The various moods of these literary backward looks will also occupy us : they range from the buoyant optimism of Pickwick to the biting satire of Vanity Fair to the measured , scholarly realism of Middlemarch . Our collective aim will be to arrive at an understanding of how the history of the novel has in many ways been the history of debates about the novel - - about whether novels were morally uplifting or socially threatening or both , about whether novels were art or entertainment or both , about what kinds of truths novels could tell about what kinds of subjects , and about whether , and on what terms , novels could properly claim to participate in the social and philosophical debates of their day . Some of these accounts depict modernism as springing up as if by magic - - from nowhere ( the Great War has been a great aid in justifying such originary narratives ) . We will go to art exhibitions and film festivals ; we will visit ancient villages , castles , and the coast ; we will walk Jack the Ripper 's East End , gawk at the Lord Mayor 's yearly procession , and celebrate Guy Fawkes Day the old fashioned way : at a bonfire where effigies of England 's favorite traitor are annually burned . TRENTON ( AP ) Lawyers for plaintiffs in the massive litigation over withdrawn painkiller Vioxx are banding together a legal " dream team " that plans to push all their future lawsuits into state courts , considered less friendly to defendant Merck & Co.Houston lawyer Mark Lanier and New York attorney Perry Weitz have put together a legal team of at least 10 law firms and 350 lawyers around the country , Lanier told The Associated Press in an interview Monday.In addition to pushing the lawsuits to state courts , the effort is aimed at forcing Merck to start " trying to resolve cases fairly " with settlements instead of fighting each in court , Lanier said . A decision that Vioxx was a key cause would lead the jury to set compensatory damages for both Humeston and his wife , Mary.If the jury awards compensatory damages , there would be a separate trial to determine a punitive damage award . While it may take 10 or 20 trials to establish the value of all the cases , at some point , both sides will have an idea of the probability of success of those cases in New Jersey . " You owe them an apology , do n't you ? The company 's stock rose 6 percent , or $ 1.69 , to $ 30.10 in late morning trading after the verdict.Members of Merck 's legal team , some with tears in their eyes , hugged each other after the New Jersey verdict . It was an ordinary eighteen-penny comb , taken from a card in a chemist 's shop , of a substance of a definite specific gravity , and no more capable of rebellion against the Laws by which it existed than are the worlds that keep their orbits through the void . ATLANTIC CITY , N.J. ( AP ) Three years before it pulled Vioxx off the market , Merck & Co. publicly touted the safety of its arthritis drug in promotional campaigns and a news release , prompting a rebuke by federal regulators , according to documents shown to jurors Tuesday in a product liability trial over the drug.Jurors also saw excerpts of a study published by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration epidemiologist that said up to 140,000 Vioxx users suffered heart complications due to the drug while Vioxx was on the market between 1999 and 2004.The documents were shown in court on a day mainly focused on the combative cross-examination of a cardiology expert testifying for plaintiff Frederick " Mike " Humeston.Defending his opinions in a series of testy exchanges with Merck lawyer Stephen Raber , Dr. Benedict Lucchesi stood by his assertion that Vioxx — even if taken only once — could boost a person 's risk of heart attack or stroke . Washington , D.C. - based Heritage Preservation , countered many of these self-criticisms . We want to be part of a larger geographical area - - and we want variety to be maintained but not to become an obstacle . " You've looked at your collective past , and current trends and how they have an impact on the themes of this conference , " said co-Future-Search facilitator Ilene Wasserman . To start , each person contributed comments to three timelines that were hung on the walls of the meeting room : a personal timeline , on which to note personal highlights and milestones from the past 50 years or earlier , up until today ; a global timeline spanning the same time ; and a local cultural-heritage-resources timeline .