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We will read widely in Dickens ' fiction , and we will also examine his journalism , his theatrical ventures , his letters , and his critics . You should be able to read at a rate of at least 30 pages per hour when you are reading fiction ; you should budget more time for secondary readings as critical prose tends to be quite dense . Prouds - - Our international reputation for innovative programs ; partnerships that stretch our resources ; that we often put service above the bottom line . The story of the rise of the novel is the story of how a new literary form became a distinct , established genre , one whose formal conventions quickly grew to be every bit as stylized as those of poetry and drama . These are some of the questions that will occupy us this semester as we study a range of American writers who have approached the complex question of the " family story " through fiction . And Society Drama as a whole was a mirror in which fashionable audiences could see fashionable images of their own fashionable world of at-homes , dinner parties , and country-house weekends ; a world in which gentlemen with hyphenated surnames , dressed in carefully-creased trousers and elegant cravats , made small talk with titled ladies dressed a la mode , and flirted , for a moment only , with the dreaded possibilities of adultery and interclass marriage ; a world in which one could pause for a moment to consider what to do with the women of doubtful reputation in one 's midst , but where one would not hesitate to banish these " fallen " women back to their declasse world of Parisian boarding houses and second-rate continental resort towns . In that year , too , the Anglo-Irish writer Maria Edgeworth published Castle Rackrent , a short novel that helped inaugurate a long tradition of writing against the English occupation of Ireland from within the confines of fiction . What , and she with a passion so fierce and centered that it had not hesitated at the destruction , twice attempted , of her rival ? Our aim in this course will be to sort through the complex , confusing , and deeply intriguing questions that are contained within the seemingly simple concept of the " family history " and the " family story . This course will be devoted to intensive , thoughtful study of the life , work , and legacy of the man who is often held to be the nineteenth century 's greatest novelist . He revolved it for some minutes , and then , remembering the success of his story of a sudden call to town , cut the knot of his difficulty with another lie . " According to Twain , British novelist Walter Scott caused the Civil War , and he did so by telling stories . And what would it mean - - for your understanding of family , your understanding of story , and your understanding of history - - if you found that your foundational family stories were not quite true ? We will focus our attention on some of the major fiction of the period , attending to issues of style and form as well as to how the novel participates in Victorian debates about poverty , sexuality , morality , change , and imperialism . Each theatre was exclusively leased by a manager , often an " Actor-Manager , " who established a reputation for his theatre ( the actor-managers were most often men ) through the style of his acting , the physical splendor of the production , and the type of dramatic entertainment offered .