ABSTRACT
The elements of Martin Chuzzlewit to be described and discussed in the present chapter might be called, to pursue the culinary metaphor initiated earlier on, the side-dishes of a plentiful meal. For, in addition to the fifty-four chapters of the novel proper, the two most serious editions available - the Penguin English Library and the Clarendon Dickens volumes - include substantial supplements. They both provide the text of Dickens's various prefaces and of his 'Postscript', reproductions of the original illustrations by 'Phiz' (Hablot K. Browne), and the cancelled beginning of chapter VI . The Clarendon Dickens alone supplies a list of 'descriptive headlines' - the running headlines introduced for the first time into the Charles Dickens Edition of 1 867. These are somewhat disparate items, but they cannot be ignored, for they add something to the reader's knowledge and understanding of Dickens's purpose and achievement. The prefaces, for instance, express the author's own reaction to his book once he had completed it, and to some comments on it he had already heard or read. The cancelled fragment is more of a puzzle than a new light cast on the novel, because the reason why it was cancelled is not clear. The 'Postscript' rounds off the American episodes of Chuzzlewit and the history of Dickens's complex and passionate relationship with the United States. The descriptive headlines contain a few interesting side-lights and examples of the novelist's irony about his characters. As to the illustrations, they were designed in close collaboration with the author and they are unquestionably associated with the genesis of the book.
